87Brewery History Number 140

A social history of a midland business:

Flower & Sons Brewery, 1870-1914

Part I

Jonathan Reinarz

Introduction

Material relating to England's brewing

industry has recently re-entered econom-

ic and social history debates, especially

since the publication of Terry Gourvish's

and Richard Wilson's The British Brewing

Industry, 1830-1980 (1994), which con-

tinues an earlier history of the trade from

1700 to 1830 written by Peter Mathias in

the 1950s.1 While such grand narratives

inevitably focus heavily on London and

other regional brewing centres, such as

Burton, a fact which the authors them-

selves have acknowledged, subsequent

studies have also revealed the trade as it

evolved in the provinces.2 The most

important of these projects include inter-

esting works of local history, such as

Philip Eley's Portsmouth Breweries since

1847 and Peter Shinner's description of

Grimsby's trade in the nineteenth century,

and very comprehensive, commissioned

accounts of particular firms, of which

Richard Wilson's detailed study of Greene

King is perhaps the best example.3

Although these authors' approaches

inevitably differ, often only slightly, the

commercial brewing process has

changed very little since the mid- to late-

nineteenth century. While the biochemical

actions of yeast and chemical reactions

which take place during fermentation

continue to be investigated by chemists

and biologists, the steps by which hops,

barley, yeast and water are combined

and transformed into English ale are

more familiar to the public than ever in

the past. Not only is the process repeat-

edly described in scientific texts, but most

histories of the trade briefly outline the

operation in order that readers may

familiarise themselves with obscure

terms and expressions and other aspects

peculiar to the trade. For the purposes of

this study, a summary of Peter Mathias's

description of the brewing process has

been included in the introduction, not

only to make the overall claims of this

study more accessible, but in order to

frame an argument which his work helps

initiate and thereby set this work apart

from the body of literature pertaining to

the trade as it currently exists.

In the introduction to Lesley Richmond's

and Alison Turton's The Brewing Industry:

88 Journal of the Brewery History Society

A Guide to Historical Records, Peter

Mathias, like many other brewing histori-

ans, provides a useful introduction to

the subject by carefully outlining the

basic brewing procedure.4 Assuming the

typical English brewery made its own

malt, Mathias begins by describing the

way in which barley is transformed into

malt and milled into a coarse powder,

called grist. Mixed with hot water in the

brewer's mash tun, starch contained in

the grains is then converted to maltose

which dissolves to form a sweet malt

solution, commonly referred to as wort.

This dense sugary liquid is separated

from the spent grains and run off into a

brewing copper to which hops are

added, and the contents are boiled;

sugars may also periodically be added

to the solution in order to increase the

fermentable materials available to the

brewer. After the hops have been

strained from the mixture, the brew is

permitted to cool and aerated to increase

the rate of fermentation which takes

place in one of a number of special ves-

sels. Yeast is then pitched, or added to

the mixture, in order to convert sugar to

alcohol and carbon dioxide. Over sever-

al days, a fluffy yeast crust, or head,

forms on the product and is periodically

skimmed off. During racking, the beer is

filled into casks and permitted to condi-

tion. Extra hops and priming sugars may

be added to increase the strength or

adjust carbon dioxide in the beer. Finally,

residual yeast cells and other particles in

the beer are cleared by the addition of

finings or isinglass which deposits them

as sediment.

Although these descriptions are almost

always useful to an understanding of the

trade, Mathias's particular essay also

presents the reader with several uncer-

tainties. Presumably, the entire process

was not mechanised to the extent that

the product of each brew was efficiently

passed from one stage to the next in the

brewery buildings. While gravity was an

important motive force in many of the

tower breweries constructed in England

during the nineteenth century, human

intervention had not been made entirely

obsolete as the result of this and other

technological innovations. Nevertheless,

descriptions, like the one above, give lit-

tle indication of the worker's role in the

production process. Instead we are left

asking a number of simple, but practical,

questions. For example, who ground the

malt into grist? How did this material find

its way to the mash tun? Did the same

individual perform both tasks? Or even,

were goods carefully measured, and was

theft a problem which plagued brewers?

As Mathias's particular article is imme-

diately proceeded by detailed lists of

brewery archives, many of which contain

material relating to the subject of labour,

it challenges historians to address these

neglected aspects of the industry's past.

In general, most business histories have

had very little to say about the general

conditions of labour or the experiences of

the average worker.5 Instead, business

historians regularly revert to a traditional

form of history writing, namely, that ‘from

above', whereby business histories become

narratives primarily concerned with a

89Brewery History Number 140

firm's founding families, their partners

and their successors.6 Few business his-

torians deal with issues concerning the

labour process, often ignoring the experi-

ences of workers altogether. Although,

over the years, ideas of labour recruit-

ment, training and management have

regularly been discussed in contempo-

rary business management texts, they

are still frequently neglected by business

historians, or left to labour historians to

write as separate accounts.7 What results

is a history of a firm's creation and growth

of production and sales over a given

number of years. Despite the critiques of

social historians, among other scholars,

this disciplinary tradition has endured and

essentially become a dominant narrative.

For example, in an article which recently

appeared in the Author, the journal of the

Society of Authors, Stephanie Zarach

describes business history as being

‘simply a multi-sided biography'.8 More-

over, Zarach does not even consider the

difficulties associated with writing a

commissioned history.

While the multi-sided biography may be

the aim of some business historians

and is unarguably a very accessible form

of historical narrative, most business

histories too often resemble boards of

directors' annual reports. Usually research-

ed and written by an historian trained in

an economic discipline primarily for the

eyes of a firm's senior managers or

marketing department, the average com-

pany history tends to be a sympathetic

account of a firm's growth over a given

number of years.9 Ignoring the experi-

ences of workers, these historians have

been described by the discipline's

greatest critics, such as the business

biographer, Harold Livesay, to resemble

weapons of mass destruction, ‘wiping out

the people while leaving the buildings

intact'.10

Although an exaggeration, Livesay's

evaluation in some respects appears to

apply to much of the recent work relating

to England's brewing industry. Although a

number of studies of provincial firms have

corrected some of the genre's weakness-

es, they have also failed to address the

labour process in any detail. As a result,

David Gutzke's bibliography of drink,

Alcohol in the British Isles (1996), does

not contain an entry for labour in the drink

trades. Ian Donnachie's history of the

industry in Scotland remains the only

work which contains an entire chapter

devoted to labour, although most of his

conclusions remain hypothetical and are

not based on a detailed examination of

wage and salary ledgers.11 To be fair to

traditional business historians, wage and

salary ledgers have not survived as well

as have directors' reports and sales

ledgers. Nevertheless, some evidence

clearly exists, as Richmond's and

Turton's guide demonstrates, and greater

efforts are needed to include this materi-

al in business histories.

Interestingly, not only business historians

have failed to describe the experiences

of brewery workers; few labour historians

have discussed the trade. As a result,

brewery workers rarely appear in the indices

90 Journal of the Brewery History Society

of labour histories, where brassworkers

are more often, and quite conspicuously,

followed by bricklayers. Generally, this

appears to be the result of a tendency

among labour historians to concentrate

on institutions rather than individuals.12

As most nineteenth- and early twentieth-

century brewery workers remained unor-

ganised, few of their experiences are

recorded in trade journals; any early

unionisation in Britain appears to have

been limited to Ireland. Branches of the

trade which witnessed some success in

establishing combinations were brew-

eries' cooperage departments. Coopers'

unions, however, generally remained

regionally based and, despite regular

fluctuations, were strongest in London

and Burton. Greater organisation for the

average brewery employee came only in

the middle of the present century. While

this thesis covers only the first years of

the twentieth century, it will deal primarily

with non-unionised labourers.

What little information existing studies

reveal about brewery labourers suggests

most had lengthy careers and worked in

very paternalistic environments;13 not

surprisingly, the former characteristic has

been attributed to employers' very per-

sonal managerial styles.14 Despite these

interesting findings, most historians have

not examined brewery labour in greater

detail. Instead, attempts have been made

to diminish the importance of labour in

the overall picture of the trade. For exam-

ple, John Vaisey considers labour only

briefly in his study of the industry from

1886 to 1951 due to the insignificance of

wages compared to the costs of licens-

ing, property and duties.15 Moreover, the

poor organisation of brewery workers

determined that labour never delayed the

introduction of new technology to firms,

though the diffusion of such innovations

certainly changed the nature of work in

breweries. Surprisingly, despite his

important work on the subject, Donnachie

also appears to justify the omission of

labour from the majority of studies, as the

industry was ‘no great employer of

labour';16 nationally, in the late nineteenth

century, their numbers totalled approxi-

mately 80,000. Even members of the

trade in the nineteenth century, however,

argued this was not an excuse for neg-

lect.17 There were certain districts where

the trade eventually concentrated and

brewery labourers consequently com-

prised a significant proportion, if not the

majority, of a region's inhabitants. As a

result, the tendency of brewing historians

to neglect the role of labour from their

studies does not appear to be justified by

the number of workers enumerated

nationally;18 in some towns, their pres-

ence dominated social and cultural life.

Traditionally, the trade has always been

associated with Burton due to the num-

ber of breweries established in the town

during the middle of the last century. In

1893, the town was host to thirty-one

breweries employing 8,000 workers.19

Histories of the town have naturally con-

sidered the role of labour simply due to

the overwhelming number of brewery

workers who lived there. However, there

were other towns which were noticeably

91Brewery History Number 140

ruled by the trade during this period.

Tadcaster, for example, became one of

Britain's better-known brewing towns

and was regularly referred to as ‘the

Burton of Yorkshire', as were Wrexham

and Alloa of Wales and Scotland, respec-

tively.20 Other regional centres, however,

have since shed all evidence of their

industrial pasts. Stratford, for example, is

more regularly associated with tourism

and Shakespeare than England's brew-

ing heritage.21 At one time, however, the

town was home to Flower & Sons,

Warwickshire's ‘largest and most famous

brewery'.22

Founded in 1831 by Edward Flower, the

brewery became Stratford's largest

employer a few decades after it was

founded. Primarily a country town in the

eighteenth century, Stratford represented

the interests of a farming community. Not

surprisingly, most of the town's primary

trades, including malting, evolved out of

this agricultural tradition, and production

at its first brewery initially satisfied the

demands of a locally-based clientele.

Developments in transportation, however,

such as the completion of a canal in

1816, much of which comprised local

investment, made for a significant

expansion of the town's trade.23 Soon

afterwards, along with a brewery,

Stratford attracted timber, lead, glass and

coal merchants and several brick manu-

factories, most of which were based on

an industrial site along the Avon, or linked

to the town's extensive canal navigations.

Better rail transport in the middle of the

last century also improved access to

many important urban centres, and made

distant trade easier to control; during this

period, London was approximately a

three-hour rail journey from Stratford.24

Only one firm, however, grew to a size

which allowed it to dominate trade in the

town.

Like other successful provincial brewers

at this time, the Flowers began to look

beyond their locality in efforts to increase

business, though strong local sales

always remained important to the firm's

trade. Relatively stable economic condi-

tions and increased sales permitted rapid

expansion. Although business conditions

continually changed throughout this peri-

od, the firm's facilities remained almost

unaltered until 1870. A lengthy period of

strong sales had convinced the brewery's

proprietors to expand production in this

year, and Stratford's landscape, not only

its local economy, was dominated by

what was then one of the most modern of

tower breweries in the provinces; gener-

ally, this form of production became

common throughout much of England

between the mid-nineteenth century and

the first decades of the twentieth.25

Moreover, the firm employed nearly 200

workers, approximately 5% of the bor-

ough's population and almost a quarter of

the heads of households, many of whom

depended on the business for their liveli-

hoods. Trade for the town's other firms

also hinged on the brewers' continued

success. For example, local timber

merchants, Cox & Son, provided the

business with wood for brewery expan-

sions, as well as the casks in which

92 Journal of the Brewery History Society

Flower's pale ale was shipped to the Far

East. Numerous smaller businesses, includ-

ing local grocers, builders, engineers,

butchers and veterinarians, however,

also profited from the brewery's prosperi-

ty. Due to the importance of the business

to the town's economy, the general

neglect suffered by Stratford's industrial

past and the richness of the brewery's

records, the subject of the thesis will

concern the relationship between brew-

ery workers, their employers and the

town from 1870, when the construction of

a tower brewery was completed and the

Flower family began to run their business

along modern lines, through 1888, when

the firm became a limited liability com-

pany, to 1914, when the conditions in

which the business had evolved, fluctuat-

ed and radically changed as a result of

war.

The first chapter in this thesis traces the

growth of the firm in considerable detail,

serving as an introduction to a more com-

prehensive analysis of other develop-

ments in the history of this midland busi-

ness. Conditions at Flower & Sons were

clearly tied to the brewery's record of pro-

duction and growth and will naturally be

discussed within this framework. More

specifically, Chapter One charts the

growth of the Flower family's firm, as the

directors opened new agencies and pur-

chased an increasing number of public

houses throughout the years 1870 to

1914. It is not only concerned with the

general growth of production, but also of

sales and markets and, as a result, of

those chapters comprising the thesis, its

structure, more than that of any other,

will most resemble that of the traditional

business history. Subsequent chapters

will each cover the same time period,

only themes will vary. It is hoped that a

combined chronological and thematic

approach will enable a considerable

amount of empirical material to be pre-

sented in historical context. However,

one theme, namely that of science and

technology, has been regarded as an

important catalyst in the industry during

these years and will therefore immediate-

ly follow Chapter One in order to increase

the larger frame of reference in which

subsequent material will be considered.

In the past, historians who have grappled

with the relationship between science

and industry, rather than concentrating

on the problems confronted by individual

firms, have surveyed entire industries.

Consequently, changes which occurred

in one branch of an industry, or a specific

region, are often used as examples of

the ways in which industry as a whole

developed. A section of this thesis, to an

extent, comprises an effort to correct

this by returning to the case study as

advocated by an earlier generation of

scholars. For example, Schumpeter pos-

tulated that capitalism is characterised

by evolutionary turmoil associated with

technical and organisational innovations

occurring at the local level. He conse-

quently advised his followers to study

business histories, for the individual was

‘the mainspring of progress and

growth'.26 Moreover, it is regarded as too

simplistic for historians to argue that

93Brewery History Number 140

change within an industry occurs sim-

ultaneously with scientific discovery.

Empirical work that has concentrated on

innovations and their diffusion at the firm

level, has repeatedly stressed much

more contingent and malleable paths for

technology, a wider range of technical

and organisational forms, such as inter-

active processes, rather than firm-based

experiments, and the role of power and

chance rather than technical and organi-

sational logic in determining outcomes.27

Although businesses have been receptive

to lessons derived from major scientific

discoveries in order to solve their produc-

tion problems, solutions are generally

locally determined. Consequently,

Schumpeter's belief is again being

advanced by business historians.28

However, though many historians appear

to have taken notice of such advice,

others still find it all too easy to dismiss

empirical work carried out by early,

practical craftsmen. The fact that equip-

ment and procedures were imperfect by

modern standards does not justify the

rejection of eighteenth- and nineteenth-

century natural philosophy as being

‘unscientific'. After all, many of these

practical industrialists went on to revolu-

tionise a number of technological

processes.

Nevertheless, considerable work has

already, to a large extent, eliminated this

bias from the existing historiography.

Unlike the field of labour, that of science

and technology has rarely been neglect-

ed by business and brewing historians.29

For example, Gourvish and Wilson sug-

gest that the period from 1870 to 1900

marked the trade's break with an unsci-

entific past. Primarily the result of work

carried out by Louis Pasteur and Emil

Hansen, brewers learned to control the

brewing process due to a greater under-

standing of yeast and the importance

of cleanliness within the production

process. Technological innovations dur-

ing this period were equally revolutionary.

Refrigeration, for example, was being

applied to brewing in many more brew-

eries throughout the country at the end of

the nineteenth century. Unlike that of the

steam engine, however, the role of the

refrigerator in British industry has scarce-

ly been researched.30 Developments in

this field would undoubtedly have affect-

ed the experiences of brewery workers.

Despite historians often describing these

changes as revolutionary, however, we

are left with few details as to the effects of

both scientific and technological changes

on the labour process.31

While Chapter Two examines the extent

of scientific and technological changes

and their repercussions on the trade,

Chapter Three considers the skills of the

average brewery employee. As earlier

studies of the trade have revealed the

transmission of knowledge within the

industry to have been highly dependent

on apprenticeship, the chapter will dis-

cuss the evolution of technical education

during a period which witnessed the

emergence of zymotechnology, the science

of fermentation. However, while workers

also very often acquired their skills outside

the firm, the chapter begins by consider-

94 Journal of the Brewery History Society

ing the firm's policy of recruitment. As

British firms rarely internalised such func-

tions, one would expect this practice was

of great importance to brewers despite

the existence of more formal training

methods. Of further interest will be to

assess apprenticeship's ability to survive

during years when technical education

declined in other industries. Furthermore,

the plight of apprentices in a non-

unionised environment will be considered,

as previous works suggest such training,

when placed firmly in the hands of the

employer, was degraded into an institu-

tion which provided industry with little

more than cheap labour.

Chapter Four is perhaps the most descrip-

tive of those comprising this study. Within

its pages, the duties of workers will be

described in considerable detail. More

specifically, it is an attempt to fill in the

gaps in Mathias's description of the brew-

ing process. Moreover, the most broad

definition of worker is used throughout, in

order to consider the experiences of

manual labourers as well as clerks and

managers. A weakness of many past

studies is that few describe the way in

which firms were managed. Con-

sequently, reporting lines, control and

accounting in decision making ‘all remain

a mystery'.32 Furthermore, although the

experiences of labourers and entrepre-

neurs have often slipped into studies

carried out by labour, business and eco-

nomic historians, considerably less work

has concentrated on the salesman.33 In

many ways, this chapter attempts to

rectify this omission. However, due to the

way in which Flower & Sons' firm was

run, publicans have generally been

omitted from the scope of this study.

Unlike their midland competitors, such as

Mitchells & Butlers, Flowers never placed

salaried managers in their public houses.

Due to their independent status, publi-

cans have not been included in what is

essentially a company history.

Chapter Five will continue the question of

management and deals primarily with the

relationship between brewers and their

employees. In most recent studies, these

have been described as having been

amiable, a fact generally attributed to the

paternalistic environment of the brewery.

Few studies, however, have attempted

to describe a particular system in its

entirety. Moreover, while sharing the

characteristics of the previous chapter, it

attempts to reveal the historical context

in which the brewery owners' particular

paternalism developed and to demonstrate

the way in which conflicting traditions

have incorporated various contradictions

into such managerial schemes, thereby

making it very difficult for historians to

agree on a working definition of paternal-

ism.

Rather than also attempt to formulate a

satisfactory definition of this term, the

final chapter will reassess the success of

paternalism within an individual firm

during a given historical period. Evidence

supporting previous interpretations of the

system as a viable managerial strategy

have focused chiefly on workers' long

periods of service and a lack of strikes.

95Brewery History Number 140

Viewed in this way, paternalism becomes

little more than a recipe for working-class

subordination. Moreover, much recent

work has questioned the relevance of

such measures in an assessment of a

non-unionised workforce. As a result, an

effort will be made to uncover more

covert signs of worker dissatisfaction

using Flower & Sons' and other brew-

eries' detailed wage books. Besides

examining labour turnover, drunkenness

and more traditional forms of trade dis-

ruption, the chapter will also consider the

incidence of white-collar crime. Further-

more, an effort will also be made to

explain such dissent by returning to the

numerous definitions of paternalism

which have been advanced in previous

historical, sociological and even anthro-

pological investigations.

Although constant efforts are made

throughout this study to compare experi-

ences of workers and events in Stratford

with those of other breweries in order to

measure the representativeness of this

particular investigation, the work

inevitably tells a very specific story of

change in a particular town during a

precise period of time. While being an

attempt to locate the place of brewery

workers in the histories of business and

labour, the sheer number of variables

which determined events at Flower &

Sons and the gaps which exist in the

records of those firms against which this

case is regularly measured make this a

very difficult task. Nevertheless, it is

hoped that this particular micro-history

will permit historians to re-think an exist-

ing macro-history, stimulate further

studies and bring us closer to answering

this very important question.

Finally, although the role of women in

brewery workforces deserves to be

addressed, very few were involved in the

trade during the period covered by this

thesis.34 At no time between the years

1870 and 1914 did women comprise

more than one per cent of Flower & Sons'

workforce. However, managers' and

directors' wives and daughters, of which

Hester Thrale is perhaps best remem-

bered, at times exercised considerable

influence at breweries.35 Their roles in

firms' decision-making processes, for

example, are almost always overlooked.

Moreover, even when these women left

financial matters to men, several occu-

pied important positions in the paternalist

structure established by brewers and

influenced firms' particular methods of

labour management. Nevertheless,

labourers, when discussed throughout

the work in the singular, are regularly

described as men, and revealed as

women only when this is applicable to the

particular employees being discussed.

Chapter 1: The rise, fall and rise of a

provincial brewery

Although Flower & Sons' Stratford brew-

ery was founded approximately 40 years

prior to 1870, it was in this year that the

firm's managers modernised their pro-

duction facilities in order to brew in an

enlarged plant according to tower meth-

96 Journal of the Brewery History Society

ods, a principle adopted at many brew-

eries throughout much of England during

these years and which survived well

beyond the first decades of the twentieth

century. While the general organisation

of production remained relatively static

between 1870 and 1914, despite the

introduction of new technology, the brew-

ery's markets, their degree of penetration

and exploitation changed, as they

evolved and fluctuated dramatically. This

chapter provides an introduction to the

state of brewing in Stratford as practised

by Flower & Sons in the late-nineteenth

and early-twentieth centuries. Other

developments in the trade, such as

recruitment, training and retirement, will

be discussed in later chapters.

Although Edward Flower is credited with

having established a successful brewing

business in Stratford, almost two

decades after he founded his brewery,

growth was certainly not remarkable.1

Total sales alone, however, were not the

only confirmation of Edward's success,

especially to his contemporaries. That a

provincial brewer's ales should have

been purchased and enjoyed in a country

as distant as India, was indicative of suc-

cess of another kind. Although the Flower

family did not use sales figures in order to

justify their reputation, they undoubtedly

relied on the fame achieved by their

world-renowned product to do so.

Trained in the art of brewing by the

Fordhams - uncles and cousins who brewed

in Ashwell, Hertfordshire - Edward Flower

spent little time in his Stratford brewery

during the 1830s.2 Instead, having

entrusted all brewing to apparently

unqualified individuals, he suffered from

what Francis Lawrence Talbot, a long-

time employee made director, years

later referred to as ‘the crass ignorance'

displayed by the operating brewers first

employed in the Stratford brewery.3 After

many spoiled brews and having estab-

lished an equally poor purchasing record,

the firm's initial brewers were eventually

relieved of their duties. The brewery was

rescued by the intervention of the propri-

etor, who reluctantly took operations into

his own capable hands.

While signalling the end of an unsuccess-

ful experimental period, the more stable

brews produced by Edward Flower did

not lead to a significant increase in trade.

Shortly after joining the firm in 1845,

Charles Flower found the business to be

‘in a small way', paying little more than

‘the usual annual household expenses'.4

Sales in 1847 amounted to £10,220.5

During a good season the family could

have expected to generate a profit

equivalent to approximately 5% of this

sum. Even in lucrative years, however,

both sons, and later partners, Charles

and Edgar, found it difficult working with

their father. This condition was almost

certainly exacerbated by the fact that the

brothers had spent considerable time

away from home and in boarding schools

during their formative years, when they

understood little about business, only its

effect on their father. When at home, the

sons remember their father as prone to

‘blow up', frequently suggesting the fami-

97Brewery History Number 140

ly emigrate when business was poor.6

Like his father, Richard, who was prompt-

ed to leave England for America due to

high taxation and political illiberalism

when his son was still a child, Edward

Flower was a well-known advocate of

emigration.7 Despite returning to England,

being apprenticed to a corn merchant

and commencing a few of his own success-

ful business ventures, Edward continually

planned his own family's departure from

England, a fact which was widely known

throughout the district. Flower often

received letters from other dissatisfied

Figure 1. Selina Flower, c. 1860. SBTRO, Photo File: Flower.

98 Journal of the Brewery History Society

residents or simply those desirous of

information concerning travel to North

America and other destinations.8 Early in

his career, Edward seriously considered

the family's departure for Australia. Years

later, apparently less fond of the South-

Pacific way of life, he travelled for six

months in America in order to determine

a desirable destination in the country

where his father had been buried.9 Like

the brewery's proprietor and future man-

agers, however, Flower's ales travelled

well. Perhaps it was Edward's continued

success in distant markets that con-

vinced him to brew in Stratford for the

remainder of his working life.

During these years, the brewery was in

all respects a small family firm, and, as

was common in this form of business,

sons succeeded fathers into positions of

management.10 Succession, in Flower's

case, was guaranteed with the birth of

three sons, William Henry, Charles

Edward and Edgar. Although William

Henry, director of the Natural History

Museum in London (1884-98), was

encouraged to pursue a scientific career,

thus being spared a life in the brewery,

his substantial loans to the firm, like those

made by many other relatives and

friends, stimulated the growth of the busi-

ness and helped pay bills during periods

when poor sales tried Edward's and his

brothers' tempers. Moreover, despite

rarely attending events at the brewery in

the last decades of the previous century,

Edward Flower's wife, Selina, had con-

siderable influence over business matters

during the brewery's first decades. In

fact, no other owner's or manager's wife

exercised anything comparable to her

control over affairs at the brewery. For

example, her husband's conservative

approach to risk has been attributed to

her resolute disapproval of debt. The

firm's overdrawn accounts at Lloyds Bank

in Stratford, a form of finance relied upon

by many other businesses throughout

this period, would, according to Selina

Flower, inevitably lead to ruin.11 Prior to

incorporation, however, the bank over-

draft was an important source of capital,

as most customers, especially those

associated with the firm's export trade,

required months to settle their accounts

with the brewery. Accounts in early sum-

mer generally looked less robust than

they did at the end of a season of healthy

retail sales and much warm weather. In

general, given the senior family mem-

bers' dispositions, it is not surprising that

radical changes to production would have

to wait until Charles and Edgar took con-

trol of the family firm.

Despite the limited number of risks taken

by the Flowers during the brewery's early

years, a revolution in transportation

beginning in the mid-nineteenth century

set the stage for a more dynamic period

in the firm's history. Developments in rail

transport provided possibilities for expan-

sion into new and more accessible mar-

kets. The second generation of man-

agers to emerge from the family

appeared to understand the benefits

such services implied. In 1860, to cele-

brate the opening of a new line to

Birmingham, railway offices in Stratford

99Brewery History Number 140

distributed free tickets to the town's resi-

dents. Among those on the inaugural trip

was Charles Flower, along with all the

brewery's clerks.12 Over the years, his

regard for rail travel only increased.

Approximately two decades after travel-

ling on the first train from Stratford to

Birmingham, Charles became an impor-

tant contributor to a scheme known as

the Stratford-upon-Avon, Towcester and

Olney Branch Railway.l3 The fact that

Flower should have recognised the ser-

vice's business potential early on is per-

haps only natural considering he had run

the brewery's export trade from a small

office in James Street, Adelphi, London,

early in his brewing career.14

In 1863, Edward Flower retired from the

firm soon after having brought Charles

and Edgar into partnership. Despite this

change in the legal organisation of the

business, and the retired couple's

removal to 35 Hyde Park Gardens,

London, it would be some years before

Flower relaxed his control over the firm.

Nevertheless, the changes in manage-

ment indicated by the new partnership

appear to have marked a fresh period in

the history of the brewery, and the active

roles both sons played in the brewery's

management eventually convinced

Edward Flower that the family business

was in good hands. After Edward's

departure from business, sales continued

their steady increase, exceeding £40,000

in 1857 and totalling nearly £100,000 in

1866.15

Selina Flower, as in the past, remained

more sceptical of the firm's success.

Charles and Edgar, although no longer

scolded at The Hill, the family's residence

outside Stratford, along the Warwick

Road, not infrequently received the odd

‘violently worded memoranda' from

Edward and Selina when not appearing

to dedicate themselves fully to busi-

ness.16 Although the elders appeared

united in a disapproval of their sons' par-

ticipation in leisure and martial activities,

such as the local hunt and militia, in

which Charles played a founding role,

Edward frequently apologised to his sons

for any angry words exchanged during

family quarrels. In fact, in later life,

Edward appears to have got on quite well

with his sons, despite the continuation of

scoldings. After the first of many such

incidents, it became clear that Selina had

always been responsible for ‘loading up

the gun', while Edward had been made to

‘pull the trigger'.17

Perhaps due to this pressure, business,

following the new partnership in 1863,

continued, to some extent, along estab-

lished lines. The brewing facilities in

Stratford still remained virtually un-

changed from those built by Edward in

1831. While agencies in Leamington and

Coventry, each with their own small

sales staffs, had been established years

before they were made partners in the

firm, Charles and Edgar widened Flower

& Sons' sphere of influence and set up a

more distant agency along similar lines in

Cheltenham in 1867. Subsequent

changes, however, were more radical.

While the brothers, like their father,

wished to introduce another generation of

Flowers to the firm, in the same year the

100 Journal of the Brewery History Society

brewery's Cheltenham branch began to

solicit orders, two additional partners,

John Tod Dickie and John Witters

Dowson, joined Charles and Edgar in

order to manage business interests

which were rapidly becoming more

widely diffused. Interestingly, the decision

to admit non-family members to the brew-

ery's management team appears to have

been made with little hesitation by

Charles, who, of the two brothers, would

take the leading role at the brewery. Had

any doubts as to the men's abilities exist-

ed, these were soon dispelled as the

firm's accounts continued to improve, so

well, in fact, that, after only two years,

production strained the capacity of the

firm's old premises and the decision to

build a new brewery was made.

As had been common among other

family firms in the past, it appeared unre-

alistic to the Flowers that any manager

should watch with 'anxious vigilance' over

an investment that was not his own.18 As

a result, the dilemma of entrusting one's

fortunes to strangers was solved by

requiring all future managers to invest a

portion of their earnings in the business

and thereby become stakeholders.

Figure 2. Flower & Sons Brewery, 1870 Illustrated Midland News, 2 January 1870.

101Brewery History Number 140

Despite the brewery administration's

incomplete transformation to a form of

management recognisable to a contem-

porary business community, the move

improved the trustworthiness of man-

agers, a matter of importance to a firm

wishing to outgrow the limits inherent in

the structure of traditional family firms. By

introducing ‘new blood' to management,

Charles Flower ensured the appointment

of new managers by his successors

would be a far less agonising experience

for the family. Moreover, as a result of

such administrative changes, and the

capital this generated, the firm's manage-

ment at this time could actually finance

further expansion.

On 18 March 1870, Flower & Sons' own-

ers and managers hosted a dinner at the

newly-constructed premises, along the

Birmingham Road, on the northern edge

of Stratford, to celebrate the completion

of their second brewery. The buildings

were erected by J & G Callaway, the

Stratford builders, over more than five

months and were three times the size of

the firm's old premises. The fifty-quarter

plant and its wide range of fittings were

installed by a Frome-based engineer,

named Oxley, while the entire project was

carried out under the supervision of

George Wilson & Company of Frome,

who also advised several other brewers

who had expanded their production

facilities during these years.19

For the remainder of the nineteenth cen-

tury, production continued to be based at

two separate sites in Stratford.20 The old

brewery, where almost a third of produc-

tion was carried out in a thirty-two-quarter

plant, and the firm's administrative offices

remained in the centre of town, alongside

canals, once indispensable to the distri-

bution of Flowers ale. As most of the

brewery had been removed beyond

Stratford's core, near the town's new rail

lines, an elderly labourer regularly bicy-

cled between the two sites during these

years in order to facilitate communication

and convey vital paperwork. This situation,

although inconvenient, was tolerated due

to the benefits the new brewery derived

from its proximity to rail transport. A rail-

way siding was erected on the firm's

property, and the loading of casks and

unloading of empties was carried out by

the brewery's own labourers, which now

numbered 130 men, most of whom

resided in Stratford.21 As the main brew-

ery, on the other hand, was no longer

located in Stratford, public viewings of the

premises after each subsequent con-

struction project gained importance, for

they permitted residents to view the

brewery, and thus maintained contact

between the business and the town.

Such a public gathering again transpired

four years after the construction of the

new brewery. In fact, the celebrations

arranged for 15 May 1874 were so grand

that many residents believed the firm had

built a third brewery; in reality, the firm

opened its 'Ponto', or fermenting room.

Built by Messrs Naden & Sons of

Birmingham, the extension added 140

feet to the brewery, which now measured

227 feet in length. The buildings were

102 Journal of the Brewery History Society

Fig

ure

3.

Ma

p d

ep

ictin

g b

rew

ery

an

d r

ail

line

s,

19

05

. S

BT

RO

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ho

to F

ile:

Bre

we

ry.

100 feet wide, a portion of which reached

a height of 54 feet. The total floor space

exceeded 50,000 square feet and

brought the planned brewery expansion

to a conclusion; the entire project since

its commencement in 1870 had cost the

firm approximately £9,000.22

Although not immediately used to its full

capacity, the new premises allowed the

brewery to produce approximately 4,000

barrels of ale a week.23 The brewing sea-

son, however, was generally restricted to

between October and April.24 This, in

turn, encouraged early and efficient

methods of estimating, a skill which came

much later to other industries, in order

that the brewery could meet the summer

demand for their product.25 Should staff

have failed at this task, the cellars locat-

ed at the firm's old buildings, combined

with the new facilities, permitted the stor-

age of 20,000 barrels, the majority of

which comprised pale ale for export.26

Additional ale in times of a shortage

would come from breweries with extra

stock with whom Flowers had entered

into reciprocal trade agreements. Such

arrangements had been made with

Worthington & Co, the Burton brewers, in

1866 and with Courage & Co of London

in 1881.27 Courage transferred the latter

contract to Fremlins of Maidstone in 1886

due to difficulties relating to transport, as

most ale reached their London brewery

by way of barges along the Thames.

Flowers, however, continued to provide

pale ale to small porter breweries in

London, such as the Notting Hill Brewery,

a firm with which it had formed close ties

and into which it had invested consider-

able capital.28 At one point Flower &

Sons even contemplated taking over

the brewery, but, instead, the troubled

business was purchased by Charrington

& Co Ltd in 1909.29

While matters of transportation frequently

created difficulties for their competitors,

Flower & Sons' early success in the trade

has been attributed to their distribution

skills. An important component of Edward

Flower's business, the firm's export trade,

developed soon after the brewery was

first established and extended very wide-

ly with some help from independent

agents located in all the world's habitable

continents. As the firm's archives proudly

reveal, the brewery's ale developed a

reputation in several foreign ports, long

before the brand was commonly recog-

nised north of Birmingham.30 The brewery

regularly shipped its products to agents

and private customers in Madeira,

Madras and Hong Kong, among many

other distant destinations.31 Rather than

cultivate a few adept foreign agents, or

set up their own remote offices, as was

attempted by H & G Simonds, the

Reading brewers,32 Flowers relied on

hundreds of dispersed customers, who

each ordered an average of twelve

hogsheads a year.33 During the 1869-

1870 brewing season, the firm had

shipped 1,515 hogsheads to various

destinations, although the brewery also

frequently provided customers with

smaller quantities. Most of this trade was

conducted by the firm's export office staff

in James Street, Adelphi until 1872, when

103Brewery History Number 140

Flower & Sons constructed its new

London offices near Paddington Station at

a cost of more than £9,000.34 In general,

the export season commenced in

November, and shipments continued until

1 July, after which date management would

not guarantee the condition of their prod-

uct to withstand the trial of sea-transport.35

Despite the firm's early success in estab-

lishing an export market, other less-

distant markets gained importance during

the years following Edward's term as the

brewery's sole manager. In addition to

the firm's Cheltenham branch, where a

team of seven salesmen doubled sales

between 1868 and 1873, Flower & Sons

had agencies in Birmingham, where

salesmen managed to double sales in an

even shorter time span (1869 to 1873),

Liverpool (established 1872), Wolver-

hampton (1869) and even Dublin (1874),

where a team of four employees had dif-

ficulties justifying the expense of opening

an office at all. Moreover, the brewery's

original branches in Leamington and

London both maintained high levels of

sales, and, after remaining quite static for

most of the 1860s, gradually increased

their trade in 1872 and more dramatically

thereafter (see Table 1).36 Between 1870

and 1874 the total amount of ale pro-

duced in Stratford approximately doubled.

The decision to expand production facili-

ties appeared justified, as agents more

successfully solicited the brewery's prod-

ucts in national markets.

The consequent growth in production, as

well as sales, although permitting the

new plant on occasion to produce near

three-quarters capacity, again overtaxed

the powers of the firm's managers. While

this frequently created problems for

entrepreneurs who wished to retain con-

trol of their firms using only family hands,

Charles Flower, intent on working less

than he had in the past, was quite com-

fortable with the thought of introducing

new talent to the firm. After he returned to

Stratford following a term managing the

brewery's London offices, which were

then entrusted to Mr E Dix, Charles spent

much of his time travelling between

newly-established agencies in England,

checking agency books, ensuring salesmen

regularly travelled through designated

districts canvassing orders and investi-

gating any complaints. Moreover, he

maintained control over the majority of

the firm's correspondence. Rather than

take on greater responsibility, or recruit

additional unqualified family members, a

practice which he openly discouraged,

Flower decided to employ young

hands,'very able ones, to come in and

join them in taking a share of the duty'.37

In addition to Dowson and Dickie, the firm

acquired the services of Stephen Moore

of Lincoln, formerly an apprentice with

the firm, who also spent some years in

charge of production at the Notting Hill

Brewery, London; Moore is first listed

among the brewery's salaried staff in

1873, though he had settled in Stratford

the previous year.38 Near the same date,

the firm acquired the services of

Archibald Park, originally a distributor of

Flowers ale in Madeira, in order to man-

age brewery offices at Birmingham and

104 Journal of the Brewery History Society

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105Brewery History Number 140

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106 Journal of the Brewery History Society

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107Brewery History Number 140

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109Brewery History Number 140

110 Journal of the Brewery History Society

Wolverhampton. After having gained a

knowledge of the manner in which local

agencies were run, Park was provided

yearly with a rail pass and took over

Charles's tour of regional offices in

England, as well as Dickie's periodic vis-

its to Ireland.

Meanwhile, closer to home, improve-

ments were introduced to the Stratford

brewery for more than a decade after its

initial construction. One of the firm's six

malt houses was rebuilt to suit the

Galland-patented process of pneumatic

malting in 1879, in order to save time,

space and labour.39 This was soon fol-

lowed by the modernisation of the firm's

mashing plant according to methods

introduced to Charles Flower by a

German brewer and engineer, Emil Welz,

in 1881. New ice-making machinery,

mash tuns and boiling plants at both the

old and new breweries were also

installed during the 1883-1884 brewing

season. The following season, a Slopes-

patented kiln, which facilitated the pro-

duction of malt of a uniform quality, was

installed in the brewery's third and largest

malt house. Finally, as early as 1886, the

initial infrastructure required to electrify

the brewery, including a 1,000-watt

dynamo, was installed on the main

premises, and ensured electricity would

begin to play a more important role in

production.40

Flower & Sons' interest in technological

developments not only ensured that the

firm's managers encouraged their brew-

ers to apply the latest inventions to the

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111Brewery History Number 140

brewing process, but also led them to

play a larger role in the distribution of par-

ticular innovations. Having diversified

broadly during his first years as a brewer,

Edward Flower had concentrated almost

exclusively on the production of pale ales

since the 1860s; Flower gave up his wine

and spirits business when son Charles

joined the firm in 1863 and had ceased all

trade in scrap-iron years earlier.41 By the

1880s, however, foreign contacts and the

firm's own experiments with various

brewing machinery, convinced its man-

agers that they had developed an addi-

tional strength and, consequently, a new

direction in which to expand. Impressed

with an innovative mashing apparatus

manufactured by Emil Welz of Breslau,

Flower & Sons entered into negotiations

with the brewing engineers, Pontifex &

Wood, to produce the German firm's

machinery in London.42 As Welz's sole

agents in England, Flower & Sons hoped

to take a leading role in the distribution of

mashing equipment, which had gained

importance due to legislative changes

introduced at the beginning of the 1880s

and was beginning to be described by

many brewers as ‘the greatest improve-

ment in the modern art of brewing '43

Despite the successful performance of

the firm's own mashing plant, little else

during this venture worked in the brew-

ery's favour. A second apparatus, which

was intended to serve as a demonstra-

tion model to be viewed by brewers

interested in Welz's methods of mashing,

was damaged during transport from

Germany.44 Although repaired and erect-

ed in Stratford with the help of a skilled

mechanic sent by the Breslau firm, the

inside of the machine soon became

worn. Moreover, the managers noticed

several screws holding the contraption

together had rusted through only a month

after it had first been put into operation.

Nevertheless, some interest in the new

method was shown by Mr William

Greatorex of the Neptune Brewery,

Manchester, who requested particulars

relating to the self-acting mashing plant

and arranged to view the foreign-engi-

neered equipment in Stratford. When the

machine did not work as well as

described, and even broke down on

several occasions, Flower & Sons' only

serious customer decided against adopt-

ing Welz's invention. Unable to report

any sales, Flowers wrote to the German

engineer and described how difficult it

was to ‘induce Brewers to put up new

apparatus', and requested more time to

convince other industrialists of the

machine's advantages.45 Apparently this

was out of the question, for, shortly after-

wards, Flowers wrote to Pontifex & Wood

describing the unsatisfactory way in

which they had been treated by Welz,

gave up all attempts to import brewing

apparatus and concentrated on that at

which they were best.

Despite Flower & Sons' international

connections and a desire to ship their ale

throughout the world, the brewery's most

important customers, along with their

smallest rivals, had always been situated

locally. Given its agricultural traditions

and fruit-growing regions, Warwickshire

112 Journal of the Brewery History Society

was home to a number of home brewers

and wine makers. While evidence sug-

gests the brewers occasionally regarded

this trade as a hindrance to its own, had

the firm not supplied approximately 300

cottage customers with malt to brew in

winter, few would have purchased the

brewery's products in spring and sum-

mer, periods when most amateur brewers

ceased to produce their own ale.46

Moreover, despite the difficulty of meas-

uring the success of temperance efforts,

arguments advanced by local teetotallers

do not appear to have halted the brew-

ery's advance during this period.

Although often keeping an eye on temper-

ance meetings, if not actually attending

them, Flower & Sons' owners would

always be able to rely on strong sales in

Stratford and its environs.47 Among its

most important customers were many

local families, including several farmers

who continued to provide ale to their

labourers despite the passage of legisla-

tion that discouraged this practice in the

early 1870s.

In spite of the persistence of orders from

faithful agriculturists, most individuals in

Flower & Sons' home market obtained

their ale from public houses. Although

some houses in Stratford continued to

brew their own beer in the early nine-

teenth century, their numbers steadily

decreased as the public began to

demand a more stable, commercially-

brewed ale.48 A regular outlet for the

brewery's ales was guaranteed as early

as 1836 when Edward Flower ‘tied' a

local public house to the firm. A loan to

the Union Tavern in Stratford guaranteed

the owner sold only ‘Avon Ales', the name

by which Flower's ale was then common-

ly known.49 In the last years of the 1850s

and most of the 1860s, the practice of

tying trade by guaranteeing mortgages or

providing loans steadily increased.

Almost all of the brewery's early tied

houses were located in Stratford. One of

the first was the White Lion in 1858. A

year later, arrangements were made that

only Flower's products would be sold in

the Golden Lion Hotel. Although the

brewery had not directly controlled its

own wine and spirit trade since the early

1860s, in exchange of a fixed commis-

sion, Flower & Sons sold the products of

other firms in order to supply a full range

of alcoholic beverages, mineral waters

and even tobacco to its houses.50 In

1863, such an agreement was reached

with the proprietors of the Rose & Crown.

A year later the Green Dragon in Arden

Street, which would host many of the

firm's celebrations in later years, was pur-

chased outright from Charles Brett. When

licences were restricted by the Wine and

Beerhouse Act of 1869, and properties

became more valuable, Charles and

Edgar, like their competitors, more regu-

larly acquired public houses.51 By the

end of the 1879-1880 season, however,

the brewery had still acquired only some

twenty houses (see Table 2).

Many of the firm's first public houses

were purchased individually out of profits,

and not always for their commercial

value. Ever the Shakespeare aficionado,

Charles Flower rarely appears to have

113Brewery History Number 140

1858

White Lion Inn, Stratford

1859

Golden Lion Inn, Stratford

1863

Rose & Crown, Stratford

Bull's Head, Bidford

1864

Green Dragon, Stratford

Blue Bell, Henley-in-Arden

Blue Bull, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire

1865

Crown Hotel, Llanrwst, Denbighs.

1867

Lord Nelson, Stratford

1868

Lygon Arms, Feckenham, Worcs

1876

Bowling Green Inn, Broom

Crown Inn, Blockley, Worcs

1877

Dun Cow, Coventry

1878

Croon Inn, Claverdon

1879

The George Inn, Winchcombe, Gloucs

1880

Falstaff, Stratford

Nelson Inn, Alcester

Norfolk Hotel, Shoreditch, London

Coach and Horses, Broadway, Worcs

Golden Cross, Harvington, Worcs

Harrow Inn, Shipston-on-Stour

1881

George Inn, Henley-in-Arden

Shakespeare, Welford

Austin House, Broadway, Worcs

Edgbaston Hotel, Llandudno, Wales

1882

Red Cow, Wolverhampton, Staffs

The Barrel Inn, Tewkesbury, Gloucs

The Cross Hands, Teddington, Worcs

1883

The Oddfellows Arms, Badgworth, Gloucs

1884

Crown Inn, Kemerton, Gloucs

Garrick Hotel, Hereford, Herefords

1885

Cross Keys, Stratford

Royal Hotel, Bath, Somerset

Railway Hotel, Evesham, Worcs

1886

Craven Arms, Coventry

Beerhouse in Moreton Morrell

The Royal Hotel, Southampton, Hants

1887

Exchange Inn, Alveston

Pub in Broadgate, Coventry

Race Horse Inn, Hereford, Herefords

Pub in Liverpool, Lancs

Crown Hotel, Worcester, Worcs

Bell Hotel, Worcester, Worcs

1888

Bird in the Hand, Beaudesert

Albion Hotel, Manchester, Lancs

White Hart Inn, Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucs

Golden Cross Inn, Harvington, Worcs

Three Tuns Royal Hotel, Pershore, Worcs

New Hotel, Weedon, Northants.

Savernake Forest Hotel, Wilts

The Bear Hotel, Maidenhead

The Shakespeare Inn, Harvington, Worcs

The Old Stags Head, Wellesbourne

The Stag & Pheasant, Hartshill

The Swan Inn, Broadway, Worcs

The Teddington, Tewksbury, Gloucs

Three Tuns, Pershore, Worcs

The White Hart, Ipsley

White Lion, Brighton, Sussex 1889

Shoulder of Mutton, Stratford

The Black Swan, Stratford

Unicorn Inn, Stratford

Bull's Head, Barston

Wings and Spur, Ullenhall

Fleece Hotel, Witney, Oxfordshire

1890

Talbot Inn, Stratford

Golden Cross, Bearley

Park Tavern, Warwick

Peacock, Wellesbourne

The Masons Arms, Bristol, Somerset

1891

Globe Inn, Stratford

Bears Head Hotel, Newtown, Mon

1892

Mason's Arms, Stratford

The Roebuck, Alcester

Carpenter's Arms, Kineton

George & Dragon, Chipping Campden,

Gloucs

114 Journal of the Brewery History Society

1893

Queen's Head, Oswestry, Shropshire

Fox & Goose Hotel, Redditch, Worcs

1894

Hare and Hounds, Chilvers Coton

Abbey Hotel, Kenilworth

Half Moon, Nuneaton

Crown Hotel, Warwick

Gibbon's Hotel, Torquay, Devon

Belle Vue Hotel, Cheltenham, Gloucs

Bull Inn, Witherley, Leicestershire

Belgrave Hotel, Balsall Heath

Midland Hotel, Worcester, Worcs

Pheasant Hotel, Malvern, Worcs

1895

Mother Huff Cap Inn, Great Alne

The Boot Inn, Aston Cantlow

Crown Inn, Harbury

The Two Boats, Long Itchington

The Farmers Arms, Apperley, Gloucs

Boot Inn, Flyford Flavell, Worcs

Wheelbarrow and Castle Inn, Radford, Worcs

1896

Old Red Lion, Stratford

Red Lion, Barford

Summerland Tavern, Coventry

Rose and Crown, Coventry

The Wheatsheaf, Foleshill

Plough Inn, Minworth

Off-licence in Abbey Street, Rugby

Garrick's Head, Cheltenham, Gloucs

Lamb Hotel, Cheltenham, Gloucs

Nag's Head, Longhope, Gloucs

Duke of York Hotel, Tewkesbury, Gloucs

The Bowling Green Inn, Hereford, H’fords

Lion Inn, Claverley, Shropshire

White Lion Inn, Astwood Bank, Worcs

Red Lion Inn, Shipston-on-Stour

Star Hotel, Upton-on-Severn, Worcs

Red Cow, Upton-on-Severn, Worcs

Great Western Hotel, Worcester, Worcs

1897

Phoenix, Stratford

Dog & Partridge, Alcester

The Lord Nelson, Ansley

Cross Guns, Beaudesert

The Engine Inn, Bedworth

White Horse, Bedworth

Rose Inn, Hartshill

The Castle, Bedworth

Prince of Wales, Nuneaton

Bull Hotel, Nuneaton

Bell Inn, Tamworth

The Castle Arms, Warwick

The Bell Garden, Welford

The Masons Arms, Wilmcote

Mason's Arms, Long Marston, Gloucs

Red Lion Inn, Blockley, Worcs

Labour in Vain, Oldswinford, Worcs

Railway Inn, Ripple, Worcs

1898

Boot Inn, Studley

White Lion, Warwick

Nevill Arms, Inkberrow, Worcs

1899

Boot Inn, Bidford

Greswolde Arms Hotel, Knowle

Bird in Hand, Newbold

1900

The Horse Shoe, Bourton-on-the-Hill, Gloucs

Central Inn, Cheltenham, Gloucs

Rose Garden, Holmer, Herefords

1901

The Stratford Arms, Stratford

Peacock Inn, Rugby

Emscote Tavern, Warwick (cask trade only)

Royal Hotel, Cheltenham, Gloucs

1903

Greyhound Inn, Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucs

1904

Bell Inn, Willersey, Gloucs.

1905

Prince of Wales, Cheltenham, Gloucs

Apple Tree Inn, Woodmancote, Gloucs

1906

Stags Head, Wellesbourne

Star Beerhouse, Bourton-on-the-Hill, Gloucs

Plough Beerhouse, Shipston-on-Stour

Table 2. Flower & Sons' licensed properties (from existing deeds)

Licensed premises are identified in present day counties and are in Warwickshire unless other-

wise indicated. Sources: SBTRO, DR 325/991-1177.

115Brewery History Number 140

missed an opportunity to buy licensed

premises associated with the Bard. The

Shakespeare Inns in Welford-on-Avon

and Harvington were both purchased

during the period he was connected to

the firm. Moreover, both were acquired

individually from their previous owners.

Sales of such premises were regularly

advertised in various periodicals, includ-

ing brewing journals. At times, news of a

house's impending sale travelled more

quickly to managers, especially if it lay

near the brewery or was already included

among the firm's customers.

Despite still being purchased at auctions

within a decade of each other, the

Shakespeare Inns in Welford and

Figure 4. Map showing the distribution of outlets.

116 Journal of the Brewery History Society

Harvington marked two distinct periods in

the administrative history of the brewery.

The first, that in Welford, was purchased

during the period when the firm was still a

partnership, while the house in

Harvington was added to the firm's col-

lection of properties after it had become a

limited liability company. Incorporation,

among its many benefits, provided the

capital many breweries required in order

vastly to increase their tied properties.52

As a result, the Shakespeare Inn at

Harvington was among numerous pur-

chases made during these years.

Acquired in 1888, shortly after the firm

became a limited liability company, it was

included among approximately fifteen

other acquisitions made in that year. The

property in Welford, on the other hand,

was one of four houses purchased in

1881.

The advantages of limited liability extend-

ed beyond ensuring that those individuals

involved in a business venture were

legally responsible to only a limited

degree for the debts their members

amassed; for brewers it was a reliable

way to raise a large amount of capital in

order to fund expansion. Flower & Sons'

early growth was financed out of profits,

an overdraft supplied by Lloyds' Stratford

branch and numerous loans deposited by

customers, salaried workers and their rel-

atives. Limited liability brought the funds

with which managers could finance fur-

ther growth. Not only would large injec-

tions of capital permit the purchase of

additional property, but a swelling real

estate portfolio made it easier for many

brewers to increase the credit they

already received from banks in the form

of an overdraft, the granting of which

became easier when a firm deposited the

deeds to their property as security.53

The success of several large share offers

within the industry, and especially that of

Guinness on 22 October 1886, finally

convinced many English brewers of the

advantages of incorporation. Only two years

after Guinness's successful incorpora-

tion, Flower & Sons registered themselves

for limited liability. The nominal capital the

company was entitled to offer for public

subscription amounted to £350,000,

divided into 17,500 ordinary and 17,500

preference shares of £10 each.54 Of

these, 12,506 ordinary and 12,500 pref-

erence shares were immediately issued

and fully paid up. The firm also offered

£100,000 in 4½% first mortgage deben-

tures publicly, being only half of a total

authorised issue of £200,000.

The finances of the company were

entrusted to individuals long familiar with

the company. The first directors included

Edgar, Archibald and Richard Fordham

Flower, Stephen Moore, Archibald Park

and the firm's new head brewer, Francis

Lawrence Talbot. According to the incor-

poration notice, property and assets,

including freehold and leasehold prop-

erties, amounted to £188,267. Total lia-

bilities, including plant, the firm's stock of

ale, hops, malt and barley, loans, book

debts and cash in hand amounted to

£425,372. While one can hardly compare

this with Guinness's £6,000,000 share

117Brewery History Number 140

issue, in 1888, Flower & Sons Ltd was

one of the largest breweries in the West

Midlands, and certainly one deemed to

have a great future by many in the trade.

New methods of raising capital not only

increased the number of licensed houses

firms bought, but led many to sink greater

capital into property in general. After

incorporation, all forms of land purchases

grew noticeably, for such a strategy permit-

ted a firm not only to enlarge its market,

but made borrowing easier. Flower &

Sons' board appeared less discriminating

than in former years when making acqui-

sitions. Their collection of properties

included several cottages in nearby vil-

lages, fields which were let to local farm-

ers and even Aston Villa football

grounds.55 No different from other nation-

al brewers in scrambling for property dur-

ing these years, Flowers' board bid for

nearly every available licensed property

which came up for sale in the parishes

surrounding Stratford.56

While many public houses were still

acquired individually, as was common in

previous decades, many were now

purchased in parcels. This was done pri-

marily by taking over entire breweries, in

order to acquire the licensed houses in

their possession. By purchasing small

local breweries, Flower & Sons, like

many other English breweries during this

era, added substantially to their tied

estate. While made to increase the com-

pany's trade, these purchases at the

same time decreased local competition.

Given the proximity of Flowers' acquisi-

tions to their main brewery, and the

increased costs entailed by decentralised

production, additional plants were rarely

used for brewing, which continued to take

place in Stratford. Some disused brew-

eries were utilised as warehouses or

converted into agencies, as occurred in

1896 when Flowers bought Messrs Alfred

Thomas's Caudlewell Brewery, a ten-

quarter plant in Shipston-on-Stour, for

£28,250 in order to acquire 26 public

houses.57 Other facilities were part of

more adventurous exercises. For exam-

ple, when the brewery hired Cheltenham

brewer Edward Pole to be an agent in

that town, Flower & Sons took over the

management of his brewery and convert-

ed the premises into a bowling-alley at

a cost of approximately £20.58 Whether

the project became a successful addition

to leisure services in Cheltenham is

unknown, for the firm's managers sev-

ered their ties with Pole before its com-

pletion. 59

Despite the apparent success of the

years which immediately followed incor-

poration, the future of the brewery was by

no means secure in the days preceding

its successful share issue. Only a year

earlier, Charles and Edgar had been

‘anxious and disturbed' about the brew-

ery.60 Since 1883, income returned from

the firm's agencies had been declining,

despite lower raw material costs.61 Only

those at Cheltenham, Liverpool and

London recorded any positive growth.

Sales in Dublin and at the newest agen-

cies in Castlebar and Belfast did not

recover the costs of office administration.

118 Journal of the Brewery History Society

Consequently, the premises in Belfast

closed in May 1885, followed soon after

by those in Castlebar, while Dublin's

salesmen somehow managed to remain

employed until 1892, a year of general

depression in the brewing trade, despite

never returning more than £1,000 a year

for more than a decade.62 Immediately

after closing their Belfast office, Flower &

Sons attempted to revive sales by

expanding their business in Bristol. Sales

there, however, did not surpass those

obtained in Belfast, and the agency

closed two years later. Attempts to estab-

lish trade in the vicinity of Kidderminster,

soon after incorporation, were more suc-

cessful, perhaps due to Francis Talbot's

familiarity with the district, but did not

make up for the loss of sales which

resulted from the closure of the brewery's

Manchester operations in 1889, after it

was discovered that the family respon-

sible for sales in the town had been

withholding payments to the firm for

many years. Moreover, as became a

common pattern among English brewers,

no further attempts were made to devel-

op the firm's export trade which remained

scattered and hardly paid enough to jus-

tify transporting small quantities of ale

great distances.63 Since incorporation,

export sales rarely totalled more than

5,000 gallons, and declined thereafter as

many more breweries were established

in foreign territories (see Table 3).64 By

1895, export sales amounted to an

embarrassing 12 hogsheads and never

again recovered. In general, during the

five years preceding limited liability, total

sales had decreased by more than 8%.65

According to Charles's wife, Sarah, the

two managers, like their father years ear-

Year Amount Year Amount

1874 1,089 Hhds, 15 Brls, 356 Kils 1885 350 Hhds, 10 Kils

1875 621 Hhds, 267 Kils 1886 217 Hhds, 12 Kils

1876 732 Hhds, 10 Brls, 59 Kils 1887 351 Hhds, 12 Kils

1877 550 Hhds 1888 -†

1878 494 Hhds 1891 88 Hhds, 3 Brls, 6 Kils

1879 273 Hhds 1892 50 Hhds

1880 395 Hhds, 16 Brls, 130 Kils 1893 49 Hhds, 24 Kils

1881 237 Hhds, 20 Brls, 150Kils 1894 61 Hhds

1882 279 Hhds, 30 Kils 1895 12 Hhds

1883 312 Hhds, 125 Kils 1896* 25 Hhds

1884 264 Hhds, 62 Kils 1908 1 Firkin

*no shipments after 1896 until 1908.

†1888, 1889 and 1890 sales figures incomplete. Source: SBTRO, DR 227/44

Table 3. Exports, 1874-1908 (in casks).

119Brewery History Number 140

lier, did not know whether to abandon the

enterprise or retain openings for Edgar's

sons, Archie and Richard Fordham.66

Only the willingness of a new generation

convinced the family to continue in their

predominant line of business.

A third generation of Flowers did not

need to be convinced to join the family

firm. Edgar's eldest sons, Archie and

Richard Fordham, appeared eager to

manage a portion of their predecessors'

workloads after amalgamation. Of the two,

Archie would eventually assume the top

position at the brewery. From a relatively

young age he quickly established himself

as one of the rising stars of the industry in

the Midlands. Soon after completing his

studies at Cambridge, Archie presided at

meetings held by the Licensed Victuallers'

Society's Birmingham branch. In an arti-

cle describing the events which tran-

spired at the society's 72nd annual dinner,

Flower was described as ‘one of the most

eloquent and active leaders connected

with the wholesale branch of the trade,'

and, his speeches, like those of his uncle,

Charles, upon whose career he appeared

to model his own, were ‘marked by

breadth and originality of thought'.67

Although his leadership qualities were

apparent from the moment he was made

a director, his authority at the brewery

only really began to increase after his

brother, Richard Fordham, was killed dur-

ing the war in South Africa approximately

a decade later.

Despite an increase in property purchas-

es, incorporation changed little at the

brewery. The period of growth initiated by

Charles and Edgar, although feared to be

over, unlike the firm's export trade,

revived. A reduction in staff at various

agencies reduced expenses, without

affecting sales.68 Moreover, negotiations

at the brewery were still guided by the

elder brothers. While Charles chose to

retire rather than join the new board of

directors, Edgar remained in the brew-

ery's employment for another 15 years.

Although the firm purchased approximate-

ly two dozen additional public houses in

the two years proceeding limited liability,

the brewery continued to rely a great deal

on free trade as it had in the past.

Furthermore, investment in the brewing

plant resumed, based on strategies intro-

duced in the early 1880s. As much of the

machinery at the brewery was little more

than a decade old, the directors could

turn their attention to the brewery's most

important natural resource. In order to

ensure the quality and supply of the firm's

water, a new well was sunk in 1895.69

While the feat was described as novel,

the project was carried out by a new gen-

eration of managers, whose membership

on the managerial team had also been

one of Charles's and Edgar's most impor-

tant innovations.

One of the newer members on the com-

pany's board, well known to the London

trade due to the role he played in brewing

societies based in the capital, was John

Pritchard, a native of Stratford and son of

local surgeon, Dr Arthur Pritchard. On the

occasion of his becoming a director of the

brewery in 1897, after working his way up

120 Journal of the Brewery History Society

from the cask department and having

successfully fulfilled the duties associat-

ed with managing the firm's London

office, which he had joined in 1869, mem-

bers of the trade assembled at the Hotel

Cecil in London, where Pritchard was

presented with ‘a handsome testimonial

engrossed on vellum and framed in gilt,'

a silver ink stand and salver and a

cheque for £150 to be used in placing a

stained glass window in Holy Trinity

Church at Stratford in memory of his

parents.70 Despite the gains made by

Pritchard on this occasion, the brewery

had benefited from his service over a 31

year period. According to members of

one of London's largest trade protection

societies, those connected with the gen-

tleman were ensured of ‘victory and

success'.71

Another familiar face to join the team of

directors at the brewery was Gilbert

Thwaites. Thwaites was the nephew of

Daniel Twaites, MP for Blackburn and

owner of the Eanam Brewery, later regis-

tered as Daniel Thwaites & Co Ltd

(1897). Instead of joining his family's firm,

however, Thwaites took the seat on

Flowers' board offered to him a year

before Thwaites & Company became

incorporated. He was in many ways a

natural managerial candidate for he had

completed an apprenticeship with the

brewery and served several years as a

member of Flower & Sons' clerical staff in

Stratford. While admitting Thwaites to the

board denied his talent to other firms, it

also insured the Stratford brewery of

additional funding. As had been common

in the past, a manager accepting a seat

on the board also involved his taking a

greater stake in the company. In addition

to being made a director in 1896,

Thwaites was issued with 2,500 ordinary

shares, worth £25,000.72 Although he

would have preferred simply to collect

dividends, which averaged 7½% for the

first three years after incorporation and

approximately 5% thereafter, given his

education and familiarity with the firm,

Archie's offer to Thwaites was made in

order to acquire his services and thereby

reduce his own work load.73

In addition to Thwaites's shares, the firm

issued an additional £150,000 in 4%

debenture stock, being the remainder of

the securities not yet offered to the pub-

lic, including £50,000 of old debentures

converted into new 4% stock after their

first redemption.74 Thereafter, the brew-

ery fixed its overdraft with Lloyds at

£60,000.75 Within a year this was again

increased to £100,000, providing the

firm's management with capital to fund

further expansion.76 More importantly,

these additional funds were raised with-

out the firm's having to deposit any of its

deeds as security.

Flush with capital, the firm's management

wished to take part in what would be

described by historians as an early peri-

od of brewery mergers.77 Attempts made

by Flower & Sons to purchase another

brewery, however, continued to be frus-

trated. In December 1896, the board con-

cluded negotiations concerning the sale

of the City Brewery in Oxford when the

121Brewery History Number 140

firm's owners refused Flowers' offer.78

Nevertheless, attempts to expand south-

ward within Flowers' ‘immediate neigh-

bourhood' continued for another year.79

When word reached the brewery that

Henry Larder, ‘an old friend of

[Archibald's] grandfathers' and owner of

the nearby Little Compton Brewery, was

considering the sale of his business, the

board exploited the friendly relations

which had existed between the families,

and, within a year, negotiated their sec-

ond takeover.80 Others followed. Add-

itional breweries purchased at the turn of

the century included the Tavistock

Brewery Company Ltd of Tavistock,

Devon, in 1899, and JO Gillett's Swan

Brewery, located in Moreton-in-Marsh,

Gloucestershire, in 1900.

In addition to purchasing property out-

right, the board spent much of their new

capital securing the loans of licensed

property in London. These stood at

£5,000 in 1885, at a time when London

sales exceeded £60,000. Soon after,

however, in 1890, when Pritchard

replaced Dix as office manager, the poli-

cy was pursued more aggressively.81 By

the end of the nineteenth century, London

loans stood at more than £127,000.

Freehold and leasehold properties were

valued at approximately £350,000 (see

Table 4). No longer subject to Selina

Flower's doubts and criticisms, the firm's

managers were convinced their risk

would not only bring them success, but

make Flowers a nationally-recognised

brand. Their confidence grew as sales in

London continued to grow, outpacing

those of all other agencies. This period of

growth reached a peak in the late 1890s,

and justified further expenditures in order

that the brewery could tap into what

proved to be a lucrative market, managed

by one of the trade's most respected

figures, John Pritchard.

The brewery's successful growth in

London mirrored its performance in

Warwickshire in the 1870s. Albeit the

population of the county steadily

increased during the last half of the

century, the rapid rise in Flowers' sales

during this decade is more impressive

when it is realised that the national mar-

ket for alcoholic beverages had peaked

in 1878.82 Expansion after this date often

occurred at the expense of the firm's

many competitors. This once again

appeared to be the case in the 1890s. In

surviving letter books, directors claim

that, in certain regions of London,

Flowers had 'ousted Bass completely'.83

Such triumphs appeared to suggest the

firm would soon be ranked alongside the

nation's most successful breweries. By

this time, the company's directors no

longer appeared to concern themselves

with the performances of smaller com-

petitors. Instead they collected statistics

which allowed them to monitor the affairs

of industry giants.84

In spite of capturing a healthy share of

London's pale ale trade by the end of the

nineteenth century, Flowers' agents in the

provinces performed less well than those

in the capital. Although the brewery dom-

inated the market within a 20 mile radius

Table 4. Schedule of Properties, 7 April 1897

4a) Freehold Licenced Properties

Name of Property Location Type of License Value (in pounds)

The Falstaff Stratford Full 3000

One Elm Stratford Full 2500

The Nelson Stratford Full 1150

The Globe Stratford Full 2000

Golden Lion Hotel Stratford Full 2000

Old Red Lion Stratford Full 2400

The Swan's Nest Stratford Full 7000

The Black Swan Stratford Full 1600

The Masons Arms Stratford Full 1750

The Talbot Stratford Beerhouse 1000

Crosskeys Stratford Full 950

Plymouth Arms Stratford Full 2500

Green Dragon Stratford Full 1620

Crown Hotel Tiddington Full 3000

Exchange Inn Alveston Full 1800

The Red Lion Barford Full 3000

The Fox Loxley Full 800

The Peacock Wellesbourne Full 1600

Black Horse Moreton Morrell Beerhouse 1150

Carpenters Arms Kindon Beerhouse 950

The Bell Welford Full 1300

The Shakespeare Welford Beerhouse 950

Shoulder of Mutton Broad Marston Beerhouse 700

The Ivy Inn North Littleton Beerhouse 750

The Bulls Head Bidford Beerhouse 850

The Boot Bidford Full 1150

Whitehorse Lowsonford Full 900

The Bell Tamworth Full 3500

Bird in Hand Beaudesert Full 1600

Railway Hotel Evesham Full 5500

Royal Oak Evesham Full 2250

Three Tuns Pershore Full 3500

The Plough Pershore Full 1800

Black Horse Pershore Beerhouse 1250

Butchers Arms Pershore Beerhouse 800

Wheatsheaf Badsey Beerhouse 2000

Coach and Horses Broadway Full 2000

Queens Head Sedgebarrow Full 1650

Queens Head Iron Cross Full 1850

Wheelbarrow and Castle Radford Full 1500

The Boot Flyford Flavel Full 2400

Wings Arms Mickleton Full 1600

Milking Pail Mickleton Beerhouse 700

George and Dragon Chipping Campden Full 950

122 Journal of the Brewery History Society

The Crown Blockley Full 2500

Red Lion Blockley Beerhouse 1000

Great Western Arms Blockley Beerhouse 1800

Star and Garter Crabbs Cross Full 3500

White Lion Astwood Bank Full 2500

The Lygon Feckenham Full 1200

Bell Hotel Shipston Full 2250

The Crown Shipston Full 1000

Red Lion Shipston Beerhouse 700

Harrow Inn Shipston Full 1700

Red Lion Ilmington Full 1050

The Bell Armscote Beerhouse 600

The Gate Brailes Full 1250

White Hart Moreton in Marsh Full 2000

The Bell Moreton in Marsh Full 1600

Blue Boar Chipping Norton Full 2500

George Hotel Winchcombe Full 2500

Candlewell Brewery Shipston Full 1500

Boot Inn Great Alne Full 2150

Mother Huff Cap Great Alne Full 850

Roebuck Alcester Heath Beerhouse 950

Golden Lion Alcester Full 950

The Nelson Alcester Full 1500

Golden Cross Bearley Full 1275

The Bell Henley in Arden Full 650

George and Dragon Henley in Arden Full 600

Cross Guns Henley in Arden Full 500

Red Lion Henley in Arden Full 1050

Broom Inn Broom Beerhouse 1000

Kings Head Upton on Severn Full 1250

Old Crown Upton on Severn Full 700

Barley Mow Upton on Severn Full 550

Star Hotel Upton on Severn Full 1500

Red Cow Upton on Severn Full 800

Eagle Inn Leamington Full 2600

New Inn Leamington Beerhouse 1500

Greyhound Leamington Full 3500

Jolly Brewer Leamington Full 2000

White Hart Leamington Full 2500

Queens Arms Leamington Full 2300

Half Moon Leamington Full 1000

The Vine Warwick Full 2300

The Nelson Warwick Full 2450

Nags Head Warwick Full 1500

Antelope Warwick Full 2500

Queens Head Warwick Full 3300

Crown Hotel Warwick Full 4000

Castle Tavern Warwick Full 3500

Abbey Hotel Kenilworth Full 8000

Dun Cow Coventry Full 3500

123Brewery History Number 140

City Arms Coventry Full 3500

The Grapes Coventry Full 4000

Summerland Tavern Coventry Full 3500

Craven Arms Coventry Full 1500

Rose and Crown Coventry Full 3500

Wheatsheaf Coventry Full 3700

Two Boats Long Itchington Beerhouse 1200

Shakespeare Harbury Beerhouse 900

The Crown Harbury Full 1000

The Peacock Rugby Full 4500

Abbey Street Beerhouse Rugby Offlicense 1500

Black Dog Southam Full 1200

Victoria St Beerhouse Rugby Offlicense 1200

Bulls Head Brinklow Full 1500

Robin Hood Cheltenham Beerhouse 400

Cambridge Inn Cheltenham Beerhouse 1200

Garricks Head Cheltenham Beerhouse 2000

Morvend St Offlicense Leckhampton Beerhouse 1000

British Union Cheltenham Full 3000

Lypiatt St Offlicense Cheltenham Beerhouse 500

London Inn Charlton Kings Full 4000

Oddfellows Cheltenham Beerhouse 1100

Farmers Arms Apperley Beerhouse 2000

Barrel Inn Tewkesbury Full 1600

Duke of York Tewkesbury Full 5000

Cross Hands Teddington Full 1700

Crown Inn Kenerton Beerhouse 850

Ale and Porter Stores Twyning Beerhouse 1200

Widden St Offlicense Gloucester Beerhouse 750

Plough Inn Newent Beerhouse 1250

Nags Head Gloucester Beerhouse 450

Bowling Green Inn Hereford Full 1600

Fruiterers Arms Birmingham Full 3250

The Belgrave Birmingham Full 12000

Bloomsbury Wolverhampton Full 4700

The Plough Mineworth Full 1900

Crab Mill Old Swinford Full 2400

Navigation West Bromwich Beerhouse 1200

Spring Cottage West Bromwich Beerhouse 900

Half Moon Kidderminster Full 3000

Feathers Ledbury Full 3500

Brewery Stores Leamington Full 4500

Engine Bedworth Beerhouse 1500

Railway Hotel Ripple Full 1600

Brewery Stores Cheltenham Full 2000

Teddington Inn Tewkesbury Beerhouse 650

Total 282,495

124 Journal of the Brewery History Society

4b) Leasehold Licensed and Unlicensed properties

Name of Property Location Type of License Value (in pounds)

The Unicorn Stratford Full 1500

Railway Inn Stratford Full 175

The Bell Shottery Full 175

Cottage of Content Barton Full 100

Kings Head Aston Cantlow Full 450

Wings and Spur Ullenhall Full 550

Royal Oak Hockley Heath Full 750

American Tavern Evesham Beerhouse 500

Golden Cross Harvington Full 500

Red Hart Kington Full 250

The Angel Broad Campden Full 150

Greyhound Redditch Full 1000

The Wharf Ilmington Full 150

Greyhound Stow on the Wold Beerhouse 500

Cross Keys Llandudno Full 2300

Blue Boar Grafton Full 50

Builders Arms London Beerhouse 920

Prince Albert London Beerhouse 4000

Dover Castle London Beerhouse 1400

Nell Gwynne London Full 1500

The Pheasant London Beerhouse 350

Thornbury Castle London Beerhouse 560

Essex Head London Full 4800

Queens Arms London Beerhouse 304

The Vaults Leamington Full 400

Brunswick Leamington Beerhouse 1800

Sword and Mace Coventry Full 700

The Anchor Bedworth Beerhouse no value

Bulls Head Barston Full 350

Kings Arms Heronfield Full 400

Salisbury Arms Cheltenham Full 800

Stout House Inn Cheltenham Beerhouse 700

Central Inn Cheltenham Beerhouse 225

Adam and Eve Cheltenham Beerhouse 700

Royal Oak Prestbury Full 400

Farmers Arms Gotherington Full no value

The Bell Eckington Full 200

Racehorse Hereford Full 200

Rose Gardens Inn Holmer Full 400

Criterion Restaurant Cheltenham Beer and Wine 600

Albion Hotel Birmingham Full 1500

White Horse Cellars Birmingham Full 5750

The Leopard Birmingham Full 250

Turf Inn Birmingham Beerhouse 300

Old Nelson Birmingham Beerhouse 1100

Grand Turk Birmingham Beerhouse 1450

The Fox Birmingham Full 2870

125Brewery History Number 140

126 Journal of the Brewery History Society

of Stratford, and had established a strong

record in London, especially in the West

End, few other agencies experienced

the sort of growth demonstrated by the

firm's main offices. Only days after the

brewery's directors could boast that their

product had displaced Bass in many

London outlets, Archibald Flower repri-

manded publicans at their Cheltenham

houses for serving competitors' products.

On 9 June 1899, he advised Mr Hart, a

hotel manager, to refrain from supplying

his customers with Ind Coope bottled

beer, which Archie believed to be 'quite

second to ours'.85 Not surprisingly, such

episodes only helped convince Archibald

Flower of the need to tap the seemingly

inexhaustible London market should the

brewery continue to prosper.

The decision to concentrate on the

London market, although justified by

transport arrangements, storage facili-

ties, staff and especially sales, could not

have come at a worse time. As early as

1899, in a letter to Pritchard, Archie

Flower expressed his concern regarding

the continued increase in London loans;

this had worried London brewers much

earlier.86 Furthermore, Archie believed

that many of the loans granted by

Pritchard were 'shakey'. Two months pre-

vious to this correspondence, Archibald

Park, after completing a tour of the firm's

Wings Head Birmingham Full 1650

The Stores Balsall Heath Full 400

Railway Inn Moseley Full 5500

Travellers Rest Birmingham Beerhouse 2500

The Stores Birmingham Beerhouse 12000

Total 65,519

4c) Yearly Tenancies

Name of Propery Location Type of License Value (in pounds)

The Phoenix Stratford Beerhouse 200

The Sun Aston Cantlow Full 200

Fox and Hounds Great Walford Full 250

Wings Head Bishops Cleeve Full 200

White Hart Droitwich Full 500

Total 1,350

Total (all properties) 349,364

Source: SBTRO, DR 227/170

127Brewery History Number 140

offices, had notified Flower that Pritchard

had neglected to inform the directors of

several 'shakey' loans, and, instead of

rectifying the situation, continued to

request that loans be made available to

publicans whose accounts were long in

arrears. Not surprisingly, in response to

Archie's rebuke, Pritchard again request-

ed that additional funds be made avail-

able to a long-indebted customer. A pay-

ment of £14,000, returned by Pritchard

only two days after being cautioned by

the directors, appeased Archie, but

proved only to delay the inevitable.

Nationally, Flowers' loans already

exceeded £340,000. One publican alone

had £16,000 of the brewery's money.87

By granting any further loans the direc-

tors would only put the firm beyond the

limit granted by Lloyds. Moreover, Archie

Flower had informed the bank's manager

in Stratford, Mr SF Ellis, that the firm

would soon be in a position to reduce the

brewery's overdraft.

Despite staff expending the greatest

efforts to improve business in the London

office, sales in the capital appeared stat-

ic, and even began to decline in the first

year of this century. Given this lag in

sales, Pritchard deposited funds in the

firm's London account only infrequently.

By July 1900, the number of orders

obtained by the office had fallen. The

expense of running the agency only

increased as a desperate staff can-

vassed its district more regularly. Unlike

the debts accumulated by their cus-

tomers, Flowers' bills were to be paid

promptly. Therefore, by the end of this

season, the directors appeared to have

no alternative but to sell some of the

firm's less-essential property to acquire

much-needed capital, for the brewery's

other agencies were not performing

remarkably well either. Archie immediate-

ly commenced negotiations with Ansells,

the Birmingham brewers, who had shown

an interest in the brewery's Aston Villa

property. After furnishing the brewers with

the accounts of the mineral water factory

located on the property, along with the

usual sales particulars, however, his

Birmingham rivals no longer appeared

enthusiastic. Nevertheless, the firm

advanced an offer, which Flowers,

although anxious, regarded as not ‘suffi-

ciently tempting'.88 Although negotiations

between the two firms continued for the

remainder of the year, these came to

nothing. In the meantime, Archie could

only request that Lloyds maintain their

overdraft at its current limit.

While the terms offered by Lloyds until

the beginning of the twentieth century

had been unusually generous, the bank's

regional office in Birmingham judged the

increase in the brewery's overdraft to

be an unnecessary risk. However, after

having contacted the brewery's directors

and suggested modifying the conditions

governing the loan, the bank's represen-

tatives were informed that the firm's

board was unable to reduce the amount.

Although the bank eventually allowed the

limit at 4%, the overdraft was now to be

guaranteed by the deposit of deeds rep-

resenting properties valued at £75,000.

This reduced the firm's secured overdraft

128 Journal of the Brewery History Society

to £25,000, which Archie quickly negotiat-

ed be increased to £50,000, then, soon

after, to £75,000 in order to avoid a fur-

ther issue of debentures, which both

Flowers and Lloyds agreed was undesir-

able at that time.89 Despite wishing to

remedy their overdrawn accounts, the

board of directors did not regard their

troubles to be exceptional, for they

believed the trade slow-down would

affect them only temporarily. In general,

they assumed trade, though momentarily

slow, was still increasing. Moreover, an

overdraft provided management with

flexibility, for they 'wished to be prepared

for emergencies'.90

Although the anticipated boom in trade

did not materialise, as if by premonition,

the brewery's first real emergency did.

On the morning of 2 December 1899, a

fire destroyed most of the firm's No. 6

malt house. An adjoining building con-

taining barley, malt and some casks of

ale was also badly damaged. Although

workers managed to salvage some

supplies, more than £3,200 worth of

materials were lost. Moreover, the firm

was short of a gas engine, weighing

machines, not to mention shovels, bas-

kets and other malting utensils. The total

damage caused by the blaze was esti-

mated at over £14,000.91 Although the

brewery was insured by the County

Insurance Company, a confusion in the

order of malt houses, which were not

consecutively numbered, led Flower &

Sons to incur losses of £10,000 over and

above the amount stipulated in their

policy.92

Although disrupting production for two

days in December, the fire did not inter-

fere with the remainder of the brewing

season. The combined capacity of the

two plants permitted the firm to produce

enough ale to satisfy existing demand.

Furthermore, the damaged buildings

were immediately scheduled to be rebuilt

by Stratford builder John Harris in the

spring. Nevertheless, the brewery was

faced with the burden of additional heavy

expenditures. The directors had decided

to acquire several new public houses in

Birmingham to off-set the continued loss-

es they suffered in a sluggish London

market. Business in 1900, however,

proved difficult and a complete recovery

in trade remained elusive. In the annual

report issued by the firm in that year,

directors blamed a sizeable drop in prof-

its on an increased beer duty, income

tax and the war in South Africa, though

the contamination of certain ales in

Manchester, as a result of arsenic con-

tained in brewing sugars, undoubtedly

provided brewers with considerable neg-

ative publicity.93 Moreover, although all

brewers faced higher material costs and

increased duties, the war's effect had

direct repercussions on the firm's organi-

sation, for it had also claimed the life of

Richard Fordham Flower; Richard's seat

on the board was offered in unusual cir-

cumstances to Theodore H Lloyd of

Bletchingley, near Reigate, who had

been an apprentice at the firm four years

earlier.

The next year saw no recovery in the

London trade; Flower & Sons' profits had

129Brewery History Number 140

again diminished, but the firm was able to

renew its overdraft with Lloyds at condi-

tions deemed favourable by the directors.

Nothing else positive occurred in 1901.

Early in the year, the brewery lost the

services of another long-serving member,

Stephen Moore, who had been with the

firm for 36 years. Moreover, his memory

was denied any prolonged mourning due

to the financial implications of the death.

Over the years, besides acquiring 520

ordinary shares at £10 each, Moore had

deposited more than £7,300 with the firm,

which had now to be transferred to a

drawing account in order that the funds

could easily be withdrawn by the brewer's

family members. As conditions appeared

to become more uncertain almost daily,

Archie Flower wrote to Pritchard in

London and demanded he make an effort

to ‘get in a good account' and deliver the

'long promised cash'.94 The firm needed

to make payments totalling £17,000 at

the end of June, followed by interest on

its 4% debenture stock at the end of July.

Unless Flower received his promised

money, some of the firm's best loans

would have to be called in, for, as was

made very clear in a correspondence

dated 8 May 1901, 'we must have the

money'.95

Following a general recovery in provincial

sales the next year, and receiving a string

of timely personal loans deposited by

office staff, the Flower family and friends

and even several local publicans, the

brewery was able to cover all immediate

operating costs for the remainder of 1901

and again in 1902. In the first week of

February 1902, the board was pleased

by news from Lloyds that its overdraft

would be renewed according to condi-

tions set the previous year, but only if the

total amount were reduced by £25,000 by

the summer.96 This, however, required

that sales recover, and the firm's London

trade continued to decline. Moreover,

provincial sales in general were not much

better given an unusually cold summer.97

Consequently, in July, the rate of interest

on the overdraft was increased to 5%.

After another less-than-prosperous sum-

mer, the drastic measures threatened by

Archie a year earlier were finally carried

out. Pritchard was told to contact the

manager of the Swan, Sloane Street, and

call in a loan of £12,000.98 The desperate

measures employed by the firm's man-

agement, however, ensured the firm's

survival, for debts incurred during the

preceding half year had increased, as

trade in London's West End, where most

of Flower & Sons' properties were locat-

ed, collapsed. In discussions with Lloyds'

Stratford manager at the beginning of

1903, Archie Flower stated that the

brewery had adopted ‘vigorous methods'

and pressed for the payment of some

large outstanding loans, but, given the

stagnation of trade in London, the direc-

tors were finding it difficult to collect

amounts sufficient to reduce their debt.99

To make matters worse, in the first

months of the year it was discovered that

the firm's accountants, Messrs Sharp,

Parsons & Co., had made a serious error

in the previous year's bookkeeping. The

amount of £7,318.9s.10d., which should

130 Journal of the Brewery History Society

have been charged to the Cheltenham

office's expenses, was included in their

debtor balances, thereby increasing prof-

its by exactly this sum.100 Not only did

this raise the concern that dishonest

employees could easily falsify brewery

ledgers, but the board had to redraft their

financial plan for that particular year, as it

had been determined using the old, inac-

curate figures.

The depressed state of affairs continued

throughout 1903, a year of 'record rain-

fall',101 and necessitated greater changes

in the brewery's structure. The directors

realised they had to reconsider their

involvement in the nation's capital given

the declining values of their London

properties, many of which had been pur-

chased at exorbitant prices during the

'boom' years at the close of the nine-

teenth century.102 A prolonged dip in

sales had made it inadvisable to pay a

dividend on the company's ordinary

shares, which had been regularly paid

until this date.103 If the brewery were to

reverse this trend, it needed to avoid

direct competition with brewers in the

nation's capital and sever its ties with

publicans in London. Consequently,

these public houses, once regarded as

indispensable to future growth, were now

being abandoned, but still only slowly.

Despite a long, hot summer which proved

good for provincial sales, depreciations

and further losses in London practically

absorbed profits in 1904 and 1905 (see

Table 5).104 Moreover, by this late period,

other breweries that had invested heavily

in the London market began to feel the

affects of decline in this region and, con-

Year Net Profit (£)* Year Net Profit Year Net Profit

1888 22,973 1897 27,133 1906 21,526†

1889 15,535 1898 27,404 1907 20,658†

1890 19,980 1899 30,376 1908 15,065

1891 12,740 1900 24,835 1909 16,575

1892 12,177 1901 20,621 1910 18,723

1893 10,620 1902 17,826 1911 25,430

1894 9,815 1903 10,110 1912 25,479

1895 15,972 1904 6,548 1913 25,871

1896 23,712 1905 20,112† 1914 28,011

*after deducting debenture interest

†before providing for London Special Losses

Table 5. Flower & Sons' Profits (annual averages to nearest pound), 1888-1914.

Sources: SBTRO, DR 227/14 and 104.

131Brewery History Number 140

sequently, stocks reduced to their lowest

ebb since the major share issues of the

1880s.105 Unlike their competitors, how-

ever, Flower & Sons faced additional

losses due to conditions specific to the

firm. Apparently having discovered

investments which offered more gener-

ous returns, in 1904, family members

surviving Stephen Moore notified the

board of their intention to withdraw all the

funds which the past director had

deposited with the firm in the coming

year.

At this point in the brewery's history, man-

agers also began to feel the burden of

legislation, which, in the more profitable

past, had been regarded as no 'great

grievance'.106 During the financial crisis,

however, the brewery clearly felt the

strain of additional costs, such as those

brought about by political intervention.

The first such cost was the tax introduced

by the government during the Boer War

and which brewers continued to pay well

beyond the cessation of hostilities in

South Africa.107 Another burden came

with the introduction of the Compensation

Tax in 1905, which was to reimburse

brewers whose public houses were

closed as a result of local option, by

which a two-thirds majority vote of the

ratepayers would allow them to reduce or

even completely abolish licensed premis-

es; Flower & Sons' first contribution to the

fund amounted to almost £2,000.108 In

general, since the 1899-1900 brewing

season, trade among the nation's brew-

ers had declined by approximately 12%

and some smaller firms, such as the Vale

of Evesham Brewery, evidently more vul-

nerable than Flower & Sons, voluntarily

wound up business during this difficult

financial period.109

The desperate situation in which the

directors found themselves late in the

year inspired the board to extricate the

firm from the London market more rapid-

ly and accept greater losses. Loans in

excess of £97,000 were written off in

1906 alone, and houses which had been

worked at a loss with the hope of a recov-

ery in trade were finally abandoned.110

Furthermore, a reserve in the firm's

accounts, amounting to £150,000, was

established in order to provide against

any further depreciation. Despite a gen-

eral increase in trade (first apparent in

the north of England)111 after 1906 under

Campbell-Bannerman's new administra-

tion, sales declined by £6,000 the follow-

ing year, approximately half of the losses

being suffered in the provinces, the other

in London.112 That profits were higher

was deceptive, for the directors had

begun to sell off the firm's most valuable

London properties, as well as the Aston

Villa grounds.113 Vital assets were sur-

rendered in order to maintain technical

solvency.

By 1908, the sacrifice was complete.

Losses amounted to £346,327.5s.5d.,

£210,000 of which was to be met by

reducing issued share capital from

£300,000 to £90,000.114 A special reserve

fund covered the remaining losses,

except for £8,041.0s.3d. Moreover, £10

shares of both classes (ordinary and

132 Journal of the Brewery History Society

preference) were reduced to £3 shares,

and preference shareholders were to

give up any claims to arrears of dividends

up to 31 December 1908. The dramatic

restructuring of the firm seemed to over-

shadow one of the biggest political

events of these years. While Flowers

were struggling to remain solvent, the

industry had been shocked by the intro-

duction of the Licensing Bill (1907).

Brewers, however, were spared the

immediate effects of this legislation

when it was rejected by the House of

Lords, but only after members of the

trade organised dozens of mass meet-

ings throughout the country and a 'mon-

ster demonstration' at Hyde Park to

which Flowers, with every other brewer in

the country, sent many of their employ-

ees.115 Together, the two episodes would

raise fears among the investing public.

The confidence of investors, which had

been so high in the late 1880s and early

1890s, had been seriously shaken. The

directors expected the question of

finance in the future would be one of

increasing difficulty.116

By this date the worst was over. A year

later and the crisis appeared to be behind

the brewery. Despite the board's decision

not to pay a dividend on ordinary shares,

a full-year's dividend of 7% was paid out

on preference shares in 1909, and a bal-

ance of £5,567.10s.9d. could be carried

forward in the board's report.117 While the

trade in London would not fully recover

for another two years, Flowers had few

remaining interests in the capital. This,

however, did not prevent the legislation

that was passed there from going unno-

ticed. Although promising to affect the

trade less dramatically than the Licensing

Bill two years earlier, the Finance Act of

1910 threatened firms that, like Flowers,

were struggling economically in these

years by increasing the duties on breweries

and public houses and, consequently,

making them more expensive to run.118

Its passage, along with a sudden growth

in working men's clubs, which competed

with brewers' licensed houses, reminded

such brewers of their vulnerable state.119

In consequence, Flowers sold its scattered

properties in Stratford; its old brewing

plant in the town centre was sold to

Kendall's, the brewers' chemists, in order

to pay increased licensing duties and

concentrate production at the site con-

structed by the firm in 1870.120 Together

with this legislation and that passed and

threatened between 1905 and 1908,

these three episodes made the first

decade of the twentieth century more dif-

ficult for the brewery. The fact that the

events generated a considerable amount

of correspondence, unseen in previous

years, suggests it was only when faced

with dire circumstances that Flowers took

any real interest in politics. Although left

with few interests in London, the firm's

owners and management would continue

to follow events in the capital with some

interest.

Meanwhile, home sales remained stable,

and even increased after the firm

obtained a licence to sell beer from the

brewery premises in quantities compris-

ing at least one dozen pints to those

133Brewery History Number 140

customers not wishing to frequent public

houses in order to purchase alcoholic

beverages.121 Residents regularly came

to the brewery to purchase Flower &

Sons India Pale Ale, Light Bitter Beer,

Family Ale and Extra Stout. As in the

past, Stratford remained the brewery's

strongest and most reliable market.

Moreover, in many ways, this regional

dominance ensured the brewery's exis-

tence during these years.122

Conditions at the brewery and its admin-

istrative structure appeared less stable.

Having lasted longer than anyone could

have imagined, the crisis which had dec-

imated the firm's trade in London was

managed from beginning to end by

Archibald Flower. As a result, these years

would change the brewery's manage-

ment indelibly. Should one wish to divide

the firm's history between 1870 and 1914

in two, 1888 would appear the logical

dividing line, for to many it signified a

revolutionary change in the way business

was conducted in Stratford. Administratively,

things appeared to have been changed

radically by incorporation, but in practice,

as was demonstrated earlier, much con-

tinued as it had in the past. The firm's first

board of directors comprised primarily

members of the Flower family and,

despite his retirement, Archie's uncle still

played an active part in the management

of the brewery. Like his father, Charles

continued to influence affairs at the brew-

ery until his death in 1892.

The trade crisis which devastated the firm

at the turn of the century, on the other

hand, fundamentally changed the way

in which Flower & Sons was managed.

One of the more obvious changes

caused by the decline in Flowers' trade at

the beginning of the century was the way

in which power at the brewery became

concentrated. In an environment almost

certainly characterised by panic at times,

and uncertainty otherwise, duties former-

ly carried out by junior managers and the

company secretary were rapidly monopo-

lised by the firm's chairman, Archie

Flower. The delegation of responsibilities

to long-serving managers, a process initi-

ated by Charles and Edgar Flower

decades earlier, appeared to cease in the

first years of the twentieth century. After

several years of financial difficulties even

some of the most basic items of corre-

spondence, such as replies to appren-

ticeship enquiries, once again became

the work of the firm's most senior mem-

ber.

After 1908, Archie Flower continued to

run the brewery autocratically. Just as a

war-time government often extends the

use of dictatorial powers into peace-time,

Archie Flower refused to relax the condi-

tions inspired by an economic emergency.

Of course one could justify his measures,

for it was his prudent policies which had

brought about an end to the troubled

times the brewery faced in the first years

of this century. Extreme financial difficul-

ties encountered early in his career

seemed to call forth Archie's equally

extreme leadership methods. Almost as

soon as these difficulties had been over-

come, however, another crisis, this time in

134 Journal of the Brewery History Society

the form of the First World War, seemed

to necessitate a continuation of this auto-

cratic managerial style. By the time peace

came, the brewery would have endured

almost two decades of unnatural econom-

ic conditions. Consequently, more than

any other episode in the brewery's histo-

ry, these troubled times and their effect on

one man's leadership style essentially

determined the firm's dominant organisa-

tional culture. Over a career lasting forty

years, Archie Flower stamped his identity

on that of the firm.123

Apparently, during his final years,

Flower's grip on the firm never weak-

ened. According to the firm's last chair-

man, even decades after having been

faced with bankruptcy, Archie individually

controlled the brewery's finances. Not

a penny could be spent without his

authorisation. He is remembered for

having joked that his favourite form of

management was by a committee of two

with one away, he being the member

remaining.124 Few members of his board,

however, would have appreciated this

Figure 5. Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford, c.1880.

135Brewery History Number 140

sort of humour, neither did members of

his family, for his control over their

actions was also almost complete. Not

only was his daughter, Evadne Lloyd,

placed on the brewery board in 'a rather

autocratic way', but she was later given a

seat on the council of the Shakespeare

Memorial Theatre, founded and funded

by her great uncle, Charles, in a similar

manner.125 Archie's reluctance to work as

part of a team and his improvised ways of

doing business, however, did not materi-

alise in the first decade of this century;

this aspect of his character was apparent

prior to 1900. An incident recorded in the

firm's correspondence books, as well as

various local newspapers, concerning

one of Flower & Sons' pubs in

Birmingham, the Royal George, is reveal-

ing, for it highlights these traits in a

young Archie Flower.

Altered beyond recognition, and nearly

doubled in size during construction car-

ried out in the last years of the nineteenth

century, the pub's licence required

renewal before a licensing committee in

1899. The firm's application, however,

was refused before the house's plans

were even viewed by the city's planning

committee. According to committee

member Arthur Chamberlain, Archie

Flower had visited him prior to a sched-

uled hearing in order to gain the support

of a licensing committee member before

the case was presented before the other

justices. According to the Birmingham

Post, this was the first time a brewer had

visited privately with a member in order to

discuss trade interests.126

In his defence, Archie Flower claimed his

approach to Chamberlain was not as dis-

honourable as was made out to be.127 As

evidence concerning the incident

became public, many observers, like the

brewery's director, realised that the city's

justices intended to 'put the screw on'

Flower to participate in a compensation

scheme organised by Birmingham's

brewers.128 This involved the firm sub-

scribing to a company that bought up

houses which were suitable for surren-

der, as no new licences had been issued

in Birmingham since 1892 without the

immediate surrender of another.129

Yearly the group of brewers relinquished

licences of houses unlikely to be

renewed in hearings before the city's

licensing committee. By doing so, its

members would receive preferential

treatment before the bench when

required to appear before them for any

given purpose. Despite the benefits of the

scheme, however, the brewers were not

always prepared to sacrifice a house in a

particular vicinity, for the benefits in some

cases would accrue to a non-member,

such as Flower & Sons. Although he

had considered cooperating with

Birmingham's brewers, Archie Flower

claimed threats from the committee's

chairman, Arthur Chamberlain, had

deterred him from joining the scheme.

Whether or not this was true, the two

argued in the pages of local newspapers

for several weeks, and the case seemed

to reach a stalemate. However, as

Archie's opponent adopted a more

aggressive manner, the tone of the

reporting became distinctly anti-

136 Journal of the Brewery History Society

Chamberlain, and attention was drawn

away from Flower's indiscretions.130

Instead, the public demanded the licens-

ing committee be reformed.131

Despite the fact that Flower's public rep-

utation survived this incident seemingly

untarnished, another correspondence

contained in the brewery's letter books

demonstrates Archie regularly cut his

own path in company negotiations and

frequently discussed crucial business

items behind the backs of the firm's other

managers. For example, although some

of the directors were against selling all of

the Aston grounds at the first sign of

unfavourable trade conditions in 1899,

Archie offered the entire property to

Ansells due to his desire to develop the

brewery's local and London trade further.

Should the Birmingham brewery have

decided against the purchase of the

property, as they were to do until 1907,

Archie requested the firm 'please say

nothing', for the news of their negotia-

tions would upset the other managers 'a

good deal'.132

Such dealings, however, were no longer

necessary after the first years of the

twentieth century. To be fair, the new dis-

tribution of power at the brewery was not

entirely engineered by Archie Flower. To

some extent it was the result of natural

circumstances, namely the deaths of the

firm's most senior managers. Although

rarely having taken a leading role at the

brewery, Edgar Flower represented the

last of the Flowers' second generation of

brewers. His death brought Archie's

period of apprenticeship to a clearly-

demarcated end. The death of his broth-

er, Richard Fordham, on the other hand,

ensured Archie alone would inherit con-

trol of the family's investment. Stephen

Moore's death, as well as increasing the

brewery's financial burden in the early

1900s, represented another important

leadership loss. As only Edgar, Archie

and Stephen Moore had regularly

attended directors' meetings each Friday

morning, he became the sole survivor of

the board's key members. By the time the

brewery's finances improved, of the sen-

ior managers who had been with the firm

in the nineteenth century, only Archibald

Park remained, and his duties had been

significantly reduced as he approached

retirement age. Others, though much

younger, were also becoming less active

in brewing affairs. Gilbert Thwaites had

wanted to reduce his active duties at the

brewery from the moment he became a

director. By the end of the first decade of

the twentieth century, he managed to

relinquish a number of his responsibilities

until, like TH Lloyd, he was remembered

only as an important shareholder and

rarely seen at the brewery. John

Pritchard, on the other hand, could hard-

ly have expected greater control at the

brewery after his London office failed to

prosper for approximately a decade.

Moreover, by 1910, the future of the firm

no longer relied to the extent it had on

events in the capital. This left only

Francis Lawrence Talbot, who, although

well-instructed in brewing, knew far less

about business. Talbot therefore pre-

ferred to be left to run the brewery, while

137Brewery History Number 140

Archie managed the firm's offices, agen-

cies and determined company policy.

Not surprisingly, despite Archie's auto-

cratic style, after surviving the crisis years

of the early twentieth century, the firm's

management became far more conserva-

tive than it had been previously. Although

the brewery's operations in London had

been virtually shut down, other chal-

lenges would present themselves. In

general, trade conditions remained

unfavourable due to the high cost of

brewing materials and a string of 'damp

sunless summers' in the early years of

this century.133 Moreover, the hand of

government, seemingly invisible in the

two last decades of the nineteenth centu-

ry, certainly left its mark on the trade in

the first years of the new century and

tightened its grip on the industry there-

after. When sales and profits eventually

increased despite higher prices, the firm

was faced with the prospect of war in

Europe. 8% of brewery workers immedi-

ately volunteered for military service, and

many firms would face greater labour

shortages.134 Naturally, trade also suf-

fered, as beer usually rapidly attains lux-

ury status in wartime. Output in 1914

alone dropped 40%, although certain

breweries experienced a brief period of

increased consumption as men moved

into provincial military camps. Before the

brewery's balance could even feel the

affects of another prolonged battle, how-

ever, prudent measures in the form of

reduced dividends had already been

implemented. Given the existing busi-

ness climate, risks of any kind were to

be avoided under the brewery's new

leadership.

In this sense, it appears that the brewery

in the second decade of the twentieth

century witnessed a return of the policies

espoused by the firm's founders.

Although it is clear that Archie modelled

himself on his uncle, Charles, and was

even compared to his forerunner at the

brewery by the local press in his early

years, the two men were actually very

different. Given that their experiences as

managers at the brewery contrasted

entirely, this would only appear natural.

Increasingly cautious of debt as a result

of the firm's near collapse, Archie cen-

tralised control at the brewery, a process

reversed by Charles Flower during

Flower & Sons' expansion in the 1860s

and 70s. By implementing such reactionary

measures, Archie began to distance him-

self from Charles's managerial style, and,

unknowingly, ensured the ideals of his

frugal grandmother, Selina, outlived

those of his mentor and uncle, Charles

Flower. More importantly, the brewery

began to resemble the type of conser-

vative, backward family firm so often

criticised by business and economic

historians.135

Although Flower & Sons was still a noted

provincial brewery in 1914, in an attempt

to seize a national reputation and grasp

a greater share of the London market,

the company's board at the turn of the

century lost the momentum achieved by

managers in the firm's first 50 years. A

reversal of trade conditions in the capital

138 Journal of the Brewery History Society

brought a period of rapid growth to a dra-

matic end. Only those individuals inti-

mately familiar with the brewery's admin-

istration realised how lucky the firm was

to have even survived the first decade of

the twentieth century. While the brewery

had commenced the century as a pros-

pering provincial firm with national aspira-

tions, its future no longer looked grand.

Within a decade the brewery's prospects

changed in ways its managers, especial-

ly those able to recollect the firm's expan-

sion and subsequent celebrations in the

1870s, could not have imagined. Despite

remaining one of Stratford's largest

employers for another fifty years, hence-

forward, Flower & Sons' strength would

be restricted to and noticeable only in the

Midlands.

References

Introduction

1. A recent publication which places these

debates into an international context is

Gourvish, T.R. and Wilson, R. (eds) (1998)

The Dynamics of the International Brewing

Industry Since 1800. London: Routledge.

2. Gourvish, T.R. and Wilson, R. (1994) The

British Brewing Industry, 1830-1980.

Cambridge: CUP, p.382. The authors also cri-

tique J. Vaisey's work, (1963) The Brewing

Industry, 1886-1951. London: Sir Isaac

Pitman & Sons, which incorporates a similar

bias, see p.384. P. Mathias's study, (1959)

The Brewing Industry in England, 1700-1830.

Cambridge: CUP, on the other hand, concen-

trates on the London trade, a point empha-

sised by E.M. Sigsworth, (1967) The Brewing

Trade during the Industrial Revolution: The

case of Yorkshire. York: St Anthony's Press,

p.3.

3.Eley, P. (1994) Portsmouth Breweries

since 1847. Portsmouth: Portsmouth City

Council; Shinner, P. (1996) ‘The Brewing

Industry in Nineteenth Century Grimsby,' in

Journal of Local and Regional Studies; and

Wilson, R.G. (1983) Greene King: A Business

and Family History. London: Jonathan Cape.

4. Mathias, P. (1990) ‘Brewing archives:

their nature and use,' in Richmond, L. and

Turton, A. (eds), The Brewing Industry: A

Guide to Historical Records . Manchester:

Manchester University Press.

5. This was one of many criticisms made by

B.W.E. Alford of A.D. Chandler's work, (1990)

Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial

Capitalism. Cambridge, Massachusetts:

Harvard University Press, which has been

very influential in shaping the field of

business history in America and Britain; see

Alford, B.W.E. (1994) ‘Chandlerism, the New

Orthodoxy of US and European Corporate

Development,' in Journal of European

Economic History. XXIII, 3, p.640. Numerous

historians, however, have attempted to

address this weakness. For example, see

Fitzgerald, R. (1988) British Labour

Management & Industrial Welfare, 1846-

1939. London: Croom Helm; Gospel, H.F.

(1992) Markets, firms, and the management

of labour in modern Britain. Cambridge: CUP;

and his article (1988) ‘The Management of

Labour: Great Britain, The US and Japan,' in

Business History Review. XXX, 1, p.107.

Since then, one of Chandler's more recent

works addresses the question of labour in

relation to the history of the firm, see

Chandler, A.D., McCraw, T.K. and Tedlow,

139Brewery History Number 140

R.S. (1996) Management: Past and Present;

A Casebook on the History of American

Business. Cincinnati, Ohio: South-Western

College Publishing. Seven of the seventeen

cases which comprise the volume address

the subject of labour.

6. Lewis, G. (1995) ‘Whatever happened to

Social History?' Centre for Social History

Seminar, University of Warwick, October; and

interview with Gwynne Lewis, July 1996.

Wilson, R.G. (1983) op. cit. is an example of

a business history in which this particular

approach is somewhat justified simply due to

its subtitle.

7. See, for example, Drucker, P. (1968) The

Practice of Management. London:

Heinemann. In the final paragraph of the

introduction to Scale and Scope (p.13),

Chandler acknowledges that the task of

writing the history of the relationship between

managers and their workforces has been left

to others.

8. Zarach, S. (1997) ‘Multi-sided Biography:

writing business histories,' in The Author.

(Journal of the Society of Authors), CVIII, 4,

p.169.

9. Over the years, the field of business

history has been a very easy target for

criticism by scholars. For a good discussion

of past critiques see Gourvish, T.R. (1995)

‘Business history: in defence of the empirical

approach?,' in Accounting, Business and

Financial History. V, 1, especially p.9;

Coleman, D.C. (1987) ‘The uses and abuses

of business history,' in Business History.

XXIX, 2; and Harvey, C. and Jones, G. (1990)

‘Business History in Britain into the 1990s,' in

Business History. XXXII, 1.

10. Livesay, H. (1989) ‘Entrepreneurial dom-

inance in businesses large and small, past

and present,' in Business History Review.

LXIII, 1, p.5; and Gourvish, T.R. (1995) op.

cit. p.10.

11. Donnachie, I. (1979) A History of the

Brewing Industry in Scotland. Edinburgh:

John Donald, p.20. A lack of primary

evidence also led Donnachie to conclude that

‘no business archives can convey much

about the day-to-day mechanics of brewing or

the working conditions of the ordinary

labourer', see ibid., p.94. A less cited source

of information relating to brewery workers is

Knox, D. (1956) The Development of the

London Brewing Industry, 1830-1914 with

special reference to Whitbread and Company.

B. Litt, University of Oxford, especially

pp.146-62. Work on the development of the

brewing industry in other countries does not

necessarily address the issue of labour more

regularly. In Gourvish, T.R. and Wilson, R.

(eds) (1998) op. cit. collection of essays only

K. Austin Kerr's article, 'The American

Brewing Industry, 1865-1920,' touches the

subject, though only briefly.

12 Turner, J. (1989) ‘Labour and Business

in Modern Britain,' in Business History. XXXI,

2, p.2; see Zeitlin, J. (1987) ‘From Labour

History to the History of Industrial Relations,'

in Economic History Review (EHR). XL, 2, for

a defence of this approach.

13. Gourvish, T.R. and Wilson, R. (1994) op.

cit. p.198.

14. Fitzgerald, R. (1988) op. cit. pp.138-9.

15. Vaisey, J. (1963) op. cit. p.88.

16. Donnachie, I. (1979) op. cit. p.34; and

Mathias, P. (1959) op. cit. p.37. Donnachie

also interprets the poor survival rate of wage

ledgers as another indication of the

insignificance of labour costs to brewers, see

ibid., p.94. This, however, rarely stopped

140 Journal of the Brewery History Society

brewers from designing their plants in ways

which reduced labour requirements.

17. Hartley, A. (1895) ‘Practical Notes on

Brewery Management,' in Journal of the

Federated Institutes of Brewing (JFIB). 1,

p.368.

18. According to the Brewers' Journal, 20

October 1866, the trade employed 86,000

workmen.

19. Fitzgerald, R. (1988) op. cit. pp.139-40.

20. Barnard, A. (1889-91) The Noted

Breweries of Great Britain and Ireland,

Volume One. London: Sir Joseph Canston &

Sons, pp.11 & 527.

21. As early as 1890 in his Stratford-on-

Avon: From the Earliest Times to the Death

of Shakespeare (1890), the DNB's second

editor, Sidney Lee, warned against making

Shakespeare's name the central feature of all

Stratford history and topography. Instead, Lee

suggested the town should be treated as a

municipality not unworthy of study for its own

sake, see Lee, S. (1890) Stratford-on-Avon.

London: Seeley & Co., Ltd, pp.5-6.

22. Luckett, F. Flint, K. and Lee, P. (1982) A

History of Brewing in Warwickshire. Warwick:

CAMRA, p.42.

23. Hadfield, C. (1966) The Canals of the

East Midlands. Newton Abbot, Devon: David

& Charles Ltd., p.180; Shakespeare

Birthplace Trust Records Office (SBTRO), ER

7/1/14; and BRU 15/18.

24. SBTRO, DR 227/106.

25. Sigsworth argues this form of

production, for example, was introduced to

Yorkshire in the 1860s and 70s, see

Sigsworth, E.M. (1967) op. cit. p.16.

26. Pollard, S. (1994) ‘Entrepreneurship,

1870-1914,' in Floud, R. & McCloskey, D.

(eds), The Economic History of Britain Since

1700: Volume Two, 1860-1914. Cambridge:

CUP, pp.63-4. See also Schumpeter, J.A.

(1947) ‘The Creative Response in Economic

History,' Journal of Economic History.

27. Freeman, C. (1994) ‘The economics of

technical change,' in Cambridge Journal of

Economics. XVIII, 5, p.469; and Tolliday, S.

(1994) ‘Business History and the History of

Technology', Business History Unit, London

School of Economics, June.

28. Edgerton, D.E.H. (1987) ‘Science and

Technology in British Business History,'

Business History. XXIX, 4, p.91.

29. Developments in science and

technology are discussed thoroughly by

Gourvish and Wilson. Other important works

on the effects of science on brewing include:

Teich, M. (1983) ‘Fermentation Theory and

Practice,' History of Technology. 8; Anderson,

R.G. (1989) ‘Yeast and the Victorian Brewers:

incidents and personalities in the search for

the true ferment,' Journal of the Institute of

Brewing (JIB). 95; Bud, R. (1992) ‘The

zymotechnic roots of biochemistry,' British

Journal for the History of Science. XXV, 84;

Redman, N.B. (1995) Louis Pasteur and the

Brewing Industry. London: Whitbread & Co.;

and E.M. Sigsworth's (1965) seminal article,

‘Science and the Brewing Industry,' EHR.

XVII, 3.

30. This point is also made in Teich, M.

(1983) op. cit. p.131. One of the few works to

comment on the demand for artificial

refrigeration in England during this period is

Thévenot, R. (1979) A History of Refrigeration

throughout the World. Paris: International

Institute of Refrigeration. Some of the best-

known histories of the steam engine include:

Musson, A.E. & Robinson, E. (1959) 'The

Early Growth of Steam Power,' EHR. XI, 3;

141Brewery History Number 140

Dickenson, H.W. (1963) A Short History of

the Steam Engine. London: Frank Cass & Co.

Ltd; Rolt, L.T.C. (1963) Thomas Newcomen:

The Prehistory of the Steam Engine. London:

David & Charles; Cardwell, D.S.L. (1971)

From Watt to Clausius. London: Heinemann

Educational; Buchanan, R.A. & Watkins, G.

(1976) The Industrial Archaeology of the

Stationary Steam Engine. London: Penguin

Books; von Tunzelmann, G.N. (1978) Steam

Power and British Industrialisation to 1860.

Oxford: Clarendon Press; Hills, R. (1989)

Power from Steam. Cambridge: CUP; Tann,

J. (1993) ‘The Steam Engine on Tyneside in

the Industrial Revolution,' Transactions of the

Newcomen Society. LXIV; and Cardwell,

D.S.L. (1994) ‘Steam engine theory in the

19th century,' Transactions of the Newcomen

Society. LXV.

31. Vaisey, J. (1963) op. cit. p.86.

32. Gourvish, T.R. and Wilson, R. (1994) op.

cit. p.397.

33. An interesting piece of research is

Brown, D. (ed) (1996) 'The Autobiography of

a pedlar: John Lomas of Hollinsclough,

Staffordshire (1747-1823),' Midland History. XXI.

34. Although the issue of women in the

trade for an earlier period has been

addressed by Bennett, J. (1996) Ale, Beer

and Brewsters in England: women's work in a

changing world, 1300-1600. Oxford: OUP,

more work is required, especially as the

participation of women in the trade appears to

have varied depending on region, see, for

example, Riley, W.A. (1919) ‘Brewery Labour

Problems,' JIB. 25, especially pp.160-1.

35. Pudney, J. (1971) A Draught of

Contentment. London: New English Library,

pp.61-5; and Barnard, A. (1889-91) op. cit.

Volume Three, p.231.

Chapter 1

1. Flower's entry in DNB presents a very

optimistic account of the brewery's first 30

years.

2. E.K. & H. Fordham Ltd was originally

founded in Ashwell, Hertfordshire by Elias

Pym Fordham in the late eighteenth century.

Elias Fordham eventually sold his share of

the brewery to his son, Oswald, who, togeth-

er with his brother, Edward King Fordham,

ran the family business. After Oswald's death

in 1862, Edward King was joined in business

by his cousin, Herbert Fordham, and, as of

1864, the firm traded as E.K. & H. Fordham.

The brewery was registered as a limited liabil-

ity company in 1897, see Richmond, L. and

Turton, A. (eds) (1990) op. cit. p.145.

3. Talbot, F. (1924) ‘Fifty years' experience

of the quality of beer as it has varied during

that period,' JIB. 30. p.398.

4. Flower, S. (1964) Great Aunt Sarah's

Diary, 1846-1892. Stratford: Privately Printed,

p.6.

5. SBTRO, DR 227/140.

6. Flower, S. (1964) op. cit. pp.5-6.

7. Foulkes, R. (1982) ‘Edward Flower and

the Shakespeare Tercentenary,' Warwickshire

History. p.74.

8. SBTRO, DR 227/121. By the end of his

career, Edward reached only Hyde Park,

where he died in 1883; his wife, Selina, died

the following year.

9. Flower, S. (1964) op. cit. p.6.

10. For a more detailed description of the

characteristics commonly associated with the

family firm, see Jones, G. & Rose, M.B (1993)

‘Family Capitalism,' Business History; Church,

R. (1993) ‘The Family Firm in Industrial

Capitalism,' Business History. XXXV, 4; and

Nenadic, S. (1993) ‘The Small Family Firm in

Victorian Britain,' Business History. XXXV, 4.

11. Flower, S. (1964) op. cit. p.61. The

reliance of brewers on overdrafts during the

nineteenth century is discussed thoroughly in

Watson, K. (1996) ‘Banks and industrial

finance,' EHR. XLIX, l.

12. Flower, S. (1964) op. cit. p.47.

13. Birmingham Post, 12 August 1887.

14. Flower, S. (1964) op. cit. p.47; and

SBTRO, DR 227/140.

15. SBTRO, DR 227/140

16. Flower, S. (1964) op. cit. p.61.

17. ibid. p.48.

18. Pollard, S. (1965) A Study of the

Industrial Revolution in Great Britain. London:

Edward Arnold, p.12.

19. Stratford Herald, 18 March 1870.

20. Despite this unusual arrangement,

Flower & Sons was not the only firm with ‘a

double-barrelled brewery and plant'.

Production at Greene King was similarly

divided, the brewery having had both forty-

and twenty-five-quarter plants, as were those

of Thomas Berry & Company in Sheffield and

S. A. Brain in Cardiff; see Wilson, R.G. (1983)

op. cit., p.73; and Barnard, A. (1889-91) op.

cit., pp.273 and 471, respectively.

21. SBTRO, DR 227/121. Discounts were

given to breweries which did their own load-

ing and unloading. According to the Solicitors'

Journal, 10 September 1881, freight charges

were approximately 11/2 d. per ton per mile.

22. Stratford Herald, 15 May 1874.

23. ibid.

24. SBTRO, DR 227/203-9.

25. ibid., DR 227/121. For a discussion of

the development of estimating practices in

the printing trade see Howe, E. (1950) The

British Federation of Master Printers, 1900-

1950. London: 11 Bedford Row ;and Reinarz,

J. (1994) ‘Labour and Management in the

Midlands Printing Trade, 1890-1914’. MA

Dissertation, University of Warwick.

26. Stratford Herald, 15 May 1874.

27. Luckett, F. Flint, K. and Lee, P. (1982)

op. cit. p.43; Gourvish, T.R. and Wilson, R.

(1994) op. cit. pp.83-4; and Sigsworth, E.M.

(1965) op. cit. p.545.

28. During these years, the brewery was

managed by J. Richardson, the brother of E.

Richardson, Flower & Sons' shipping agent.

29. Richmond, L. and Turton, A. (eds)

(1990) p.98.

30. SBTRO, DR 227/121.

31. ibid., DR 227/6.

32. Thomas, K. (1991) ‘The Adventures of

H. & G. Simonds Limited in Malta and East

Africa,' Business Archives: Sources and

History. p.41; and Barnard, A. (1889-91) op.

cit. Volume Four, pp.24 and 27.

33. SBTRO, DR 227/6.

34. SBTRO, DR 227/8. Some of the firm's

export trade was handled by E. Richardson &

Co., bottlers and export agents in London.

Beer for export, on the other hand, was

stored at Hoare's Brewery, located at the

Metropolitan Railway at Paddington.

35. ibid., DR 227/121.

36. ibid., DR 227/8 and 106. By this time,

the firm's Coventry office had closed; sales in

the town and its district, however, continued

and were managed by the brewery's home

office staff.

37. Morning Advertiser, 8 May 1874.

38. Brewers' Journal, 15 May 1901.

39. SBTRO, DR 227/9. Initially, the firm con-

verted only one of its malt houses to the new

system because of the cost of royalties and

expenses, which exceeded £1,000 a year

while the patent on the Galland process last-

142 Journal of the Brewery History Society

ed; see correspondence dated 19 July 1878,

DR 227/106.

40. ibid. Electric lighting was first introduced

to the brewery yard, offices and sawmill.

41. ibid., DR 227/121. The brewers resumed

their wine and spirit trade in the twentieth

century.

42. SBTRO, DR 227/109.

43. Barnard, A. (1889-91) op. cit. p.321. See

also Chapter Two.

44. SBTRO, DR 227/109.

45. SBTRO, DR 227/109.

46. Brewers' Journal, 15 August 1899; and

15 September 1899. For a thorough survey of

rural and country-house brewing, which refers

to the practice in Warwickshire, see

Sambrook, P. (1996) Country House Brewing

in England, 1500-1900. London: Hambledon

Press.

47. Stratford Herald, 21 November 1890. Of

the firm's directors, Archie Flower regularly

attended and participated in the Church of

England Temperance Society's meetings.

48. The Windmill Inn in Church Street,

Stratford continued to brew and sell its own

ales into the twentieth century when it was

purchased by Flowers. The Stratford Herald,

11 September 1903, carried an advertisement

for its home-brewed ales, available in firkins,

kilderkins and barrels.

49. SBTRO, DR 227/121.

50. ibid., DR 227/110. In Stratford, the

brewery's wine and spirit trade was

guaranteed to R.M. Bird & Company. In

exchange, Flowers received 5% of cash

collected and an additional 5% of any orders

obtained by their own travellers. Bird &

Company, on the other hand, were

responsible for all breakages, loss of casks,

or bad debts. In addition, they were to send

duplicates of all invoices to Flowers and

promote the brewery's ale to their own

customers.

51. Vaisey, J. (1963) op. cit. p.139.

52. Mathias, P. (1990) op. cit. pp.25-6.

53. This strategy also proved advantageous

for several British multiple-retailing firms a

generation later. For example, see Scott, P.

(1994) ‘Learning to Multiply: The Property

Market and the Growth of Multiple, Retailing

in Britain, 1919-39,' Business History. XXXVI,

3, p.24.

54. SBTRO, DR 227/121; Stratford Herald, 9

March 1888; Brewers' Journal, 15 March

1888; and Financial News, 2 March 1888.

55. SBTRO, DR 227/110 and 170. Besides

the Aston Villa football grounds, the real

estate comprised the Holte Hotel and

gardens, which adjoined the property, and a

hall, used for many years as a mineral water

plant.

56. Gourvish, T.R. and Wilson, R. (1994) op.

cit. p.267.

57. Stratford Herald, 3 July 1896; and

Brewers' Journal, 15 June 1896.

58. SBTRO, DR 227/121.

59. See Chapter Four, pp. 172-3.

60. Flower, S. (1964) op. cit. p.103.

61. Brewers' Journal, 15 January 1887; and

SBTRO, DR 227/18.

62. SBTRO, DR 227/57. Although brewing

materials were available at moderate rates,

the Brewers' Journal, 15 January 1893,

describes the year to have been

characterised by a decline in trade, as well as

the value of ordinary shares.

63. Gourvish, T.R. and Wilson, R. (eds)

(1994) op. cit. p.25.

64. SBTRO, DR 227/44. After 1892, Flower

& Sons had only a single export customer in

143Brewery History Number 140

Freemantle, near Perth, Australia; by 1896,

the brewers had shipped their last ale to

Australia.

65. ibid., DR 227/18 and 57.

66. Flower, S. (1964) op. cit. pp.103-4.

Despite these difficulties, Charles Flower still

found time to pursue his literary interests. His

modest contribution to the burgeoning field of

nineteenth-century Shakespearean studies

includes Shakespeare on Horseback (1887)

and Shakespeare No Dog Fancier (1890).

67. Sportsman, 24 May 1897.

68. SBTRO, DR 227/110.

69. Brewers' Journal, 15 May 1895; and 15

December 1895.

70. Licensing World and Licensed Trade

Review, 13 March 1897; Brewers' Journal, 15

January 1897; and 15 March 1897; and

Wainwright, P. (1989) The Windows of Holy

Trinity Church. Stratford-upon-Avon: privately

printed, p.8. The window, with its overt

medical imagery, can still be viewed in Holy

Trinity, Stratford.

71. Licensing World, 11 March 1894.

72. SBTRO, DR 227/110.

73. ibid.; DR 227/104; and Brewers' Journal,

15 August 1891.

74. Stratford Herald, 11 June 1897; and

Brewers' Journal, 15 August 1891.

75. SBTRO, DR 227/110. The request was

made in a letter written by company secretary

Charles Lowndes and is dated 19 November

1897.

76. ibid. This is the limit stated in a letter

written by Archibald Flower to John Pritchard

dated 13 May 1899.

77. Hawkins, K.H. & Pass, C.L. (1979) The

Brewing Industry: A Study in Industrial

Organisation and Public Policy. London:

Heinemann, p.41; and Brewers' Journal, 15

October 1896.

78. SBTRO, DR 227/110.

79. ibid.

80. ibid.; and DR 227/104.

81. Brewers' Journal, 15 July 1909.

82. Gourvish, T.R. and Wilson, R. (1994) op.

cit. p.601; and Webb, A.D. (1913) ‘The

Consumption of Alcoholic Liquors in the

United Kingdom,' Journal of the Royal

Statistical Society. LXXVI, 2, p.209.

83. SBTRO, DR 227/110. A growth in beer

sales in London, however, can not be

attributed entirely to Flower & Sons' particular

business strategy. Interestingly, according to

the Brewers' Journal, 15 June 1899, certain

houses in the capital during this period

boycotted Burton beers. These factors

permitted a number of firms, such as Flowers,

to gain access to what was ordinarily a very

competitive market.

84. SBTRO, DR 227/121.

85. ibid., DR 227/110.

86. Gourvish, T.R. and Wilson, R. (1994) op.

cit. p.135.

87. SBTRO, DR 227/110.

88. SBTRO, DR 227/110.

89. ibid.

90. ibid. This was conveyed to the bank's

Birmingham office by Archie Flower in a letter

dated 3 November 1899.

91. SBTRO, DR 227/110. The details of the

damage and claim are recorded on several

pages in the firm's letter books. The Brewers'

Journal, 15 December 1899, on the other

hand, claimed the fire caused £20,000 worth

of damages.

92. ibid.

93. SBTRO, DR 227/104. Directors of the

Holt Brewery, Birmingham, for example,

believed the arsenic scare had led many

144 Journal of the Brewery History Society

workers to give up beer consumption.

According to the firm's chairman, the

increased consumption of spirits was

‘extraordinary', see Brewers' Journal, 15

March 1902.

94. ibid., DR 227/110.

95. ibid. The emphasis is Archie's.

96. SBTRO, DR 227/110.

97. Brewers' Journal, 15 January 1903.

98. SBTRO, DR 227/110.

99. ibid.

100. SBTRO, DR 227/110.

101. Brewers' Journal, 15 January 1904.

The poor weather affected not only

consumption, but influenced the quality of

brewers' materials.

102. Knox, D. (1956) op. cit. p.90.

103. SBTRO, DR 227/104.

104. Brewers' Journal, 15 January 1905.

105. Gourvish, T.R. and Wilson, R. (1994)

op. cit. p.295; Hawkins, K.H. & Pass, C.L.

(1979) p.37; Wilson, R. (1994) op. cit.

pp.133-4; and Brewers' Journal, 15 August

1904.

106. SBTRO, DR 227/121.

107. Brewers' Journal, 15 March 1905; and

15 November 1905. Birmingham brewers

eventually met in November 1905 in order to

oppose the war tax and demand the

government for its immediate abolition.

Despite their protests, brewers faced the tax

until the outbreak of another war in 1914.

108. SBTRO, DR 227/10 and 104

109. Brewers' Journal, 15 January 1906;

and 15 March 1906.

110. SBTRO, DR 227/104.

111. Brewers' Journal, 15 December 1906.

112. Page, W. (ed.) (1968) Commerce and

Industry: A Historical Review of the Economic

Conditions of the British Empire from the

Peace of Paris in 1815 to the Declaration of

War in 1914, based on Parliamentary

Debates. New York: Augustus Kelley, p.401.

113. Inglis, S. (1997) Aston Park 100 Years.

Smethwick, West Midlands: Sports Projects

Limited, p.89.

114. SBTRO, DR 227/104; and Brewers'

Journal, 15 July 1909. According to the latter

source, Flower & Sons' capital was reduced

from £350,000 to £105,000 due to their

London losses.

115. Brewers' Journal, 15 August 1907; and

Stratford Herald, 2 October 1908.

Approximately 250 Stratford residents

attended the rally in Hyde Park on 27

September 1908. Most were employed at the

brewery and travelled to the event on one of

the 170 special trains organised to bring

demonstrators to London. According to the

Brewers' Journal, approximately 125,000

people attended the demonstration.

116. SBTRO, DR 227/104.

117. ibid.

118. Gourvish, T.R. and Wilson, R. (1994)

op. cit. p.293; and Knox, D. (1956) op. cit.

pp.27-8.

119. Brewers' Journal, 15 January 1911.

120. Brewers' Journal, 15 May 1909. At a

meeting held at Stratford's Corn Exchange,

Archie Flower claimed that, as a result of the

chancellor's decision to raise licensing duties,

Flower & Sons' directors had `decided to

close one of [their] two breweries in Stratford'.

121. Stratford Herald, 3 April 1908.

122. Strong local sales had permitted other

provincial breweries to survive these

especially difficult years of trade; see, for

example, Gourvish, T.R. (1987) Norfolk Beers

from English Barley: A History of Steward &

Patteson, 1793-I963. Norwich: Centre of East

145Brewery History Number 140

Anglian Studies, p.82.

123. This, to a great extent, supports the

idea that, above all, 'brewing management is

about personalities', as is argued by

Gourvish, T.R. (1987) op. cit. p.166. For an

interesting account of the way in which a

managerial culture was generated at another

firm see Church, R. (1996) ‘Deconstructing

Nuffield: the evolution of managerial culture in

the British motor industry,' EHR. XLIX.

124. SBTRO, DR 730/11.

125. SBTRO, DR 730/19.

126. Birmingham Post, 9 November 1899.

127. Birmingham Daily Gazette, 13

November 1899; and Daily Argus, 11

November 1899.

128. Birmingham Post, 10 November 1899.

See SBTRO, DR 227/110 for Flower's

interpretation of the incident.

129. Brewers' Journal, 15 September 1892.

130. In particular, see Birmingham Daily

Gazette, 14 November 1899.

131. Birmingham Mail, 22 November 1899.

132. SBTRO, DR 227/110. The letter is

dated 7 July 1899.

133. Brewers' Journal, 15 July 1911.

134. ibid., 15 August 1914.

135. Chandler, A.D. (1990) op. cit. pp.291-4;

and Rose, M.B. (1994) ‘The family firm in

British business,' in Kirby, M. & Rose, M.

(eds.) Business enterprise in modern Britain:

From the eighteenth to the twentieth century.

London: Routledge, pp.61-2.

146 Journal of the Brewery History Society